Cabbies protest lifetime tax on luxury cabs in Bangalore

Protesting against the 15% lifetime tax imposed in the state budget on cabs whose cost is more than `10 lakh, over 1,500 cabbies on Tuesday gathered at Freedom Park and threatened to surrender their permits.

The tax does not make sense, said drivers-cum-owners of luxury cabs. Though we own luxury vehicles, most of us are drivers, working more than 12 hours a day to make a meagre profit of about `10,000 per month. This too depends on the number of trips we take, they said.

“We have luxury cars. But this doesn’t mean we are rich. Around 90% of us are drivers,” said Naveen P, who recently bought an Innova and now uses it as a taxi. “Though I own a luxury vehicle, I am a driver. I bought an Innova because rates for lending a bigger vehicle is more and I can earn more than what I would have earned by driving an Indica,” he said.

Also, the government has made no distinction between old and new vehicles. Old vehicles need to be exempted from the tax, Naveen said.

“That way we will at least have a choice of not buying luxury vehicles if we do not want to pay the tax,” said Lohith, another driver. If the government refuses to withdraw the tax, cabbies plan to register their vehicles in Tamil Nadu where tax is less. The transport commissioner Shyam Bhatt who visited the drivers at Freedom Park, expressed his helplessness, considering the Assembly had already approved the tax proposal.

However, drivers withdrew the protest after the home and transport minister R Ashok told them that their demands will be considered. GR Shanmugappa, president of the All India Motor Transport Congress, said: “Since the government has assured us that our demands will be considered, we have withdrawn the protest till the next assembly session. Till then, we will not pay the lifetime tax.”