AP mulls hiking life tax on all vehicles

As part of mopping up of additional resources and also to check the growing vehicular population, the state government is considering a proposal to increase the life tax on all vehicles.

The government is also considering an old proposal of imposing road cess on diesel and petrol sales.

Interacting with the media persons, state finance minister K Rosaiah said that his department was exploring all options except increasing taxes for raising much needed resources required for the commitments made by the state government.

Rosaiah, however, did not specify as to how much additional resources the government expects to generate by raising life tax and road cess.

Speaking on the increase of life tax, the minister insisted that the proposal was not just meant for additional revenue earning measures alone.

"With companies coming forward to provide vehicles on zero interest terms, vehicular traffic in the city and elsewhere has been growing at a very fast pace. In fact, the road expansion measure has become ineffective in checking congestion as the increase in vehicular traffic has outpaced the available road space. So this growth has to be contained through indirect measures," he explained.

On revenue mobilisation, the minister said that he was holding a meeting with the heads of six revenue earning departments, namely commercial taxes, excise, transport, stamps and registration, mining and forests on ways to increase the revenues.