Association hopes meetings with the State Finance Minister and Transport Minister will help ease their burden
Hiren Kotwani (DNA; December 17, 2018)

Within three days of the announcement of an indefinite strike by All Camper Van Owner’s Association, which provides vanity vans for B-Town celebrities and film production, it has been called off. This was the members’ way of protesting against the state government for charging ‘exorbitant Rs 1,25,000 per van annually’.

However, with several A-list stars like Ajay Devgn, Akshay Kumar, Saif Ali Khan, John Abraham having films under production currently, we hear the association decided to end their protest, albeit for now. Ketan Rawal, president of the association reveals, “We called off the strike after State Transport Minister, Vijay Deshmukh, assured us that they will look into our grievance and decide on it by January 15. Moreover, even the film industry guild and affiliated associations requested us. So, on the basis of these factors, we decided to end our strike.”

He says that all over India, vans are charged Rs 12,500 each as annual taxes. “But, for the same van, Maha Govt is charging 10 times the tax, Rs 1,25,000. And if that’s not bad enough, only this government taxes camper vans at per square meter.”

Interestingly, in the pre-GST era, vanity vans were certified under the ‘Rent-A-Cab’ category and were required to pay their service taxes accordingly. “Even the RTO permit calls vans as ‘Rent-a-Cab’. That time, we had service tax, which we paid as per the category. Now under GST, we’re no longer ‘Rent-a-Cab’, but ‘Tangible Goods’,” he says adding, “Moreover, we are also being told to pay for the last five years according to ‘Tangible Goods.’ When we informed the authorities that the last five years, we charged our clientele the service tax as per the category allotted to us, we are told that it’s not the department’s fault but ours and we have to pay the appropriate penalty.”

He says that by way of this correction by the department, each vanity van owner is shown a liability of Rs 2-3 crores of the last five years. He adds, “The department is saying that tax was paid under the wrong category and the correction has to be done because it’s our fault.”

So, the ‘new unreasonably high taxes’ and last five years’ penalties because of ‘Rent-A-Cab’ catergorisation by the authorities before GST came into effect are the two major issues the association is fighting against. Rawal sums it up, “On December 19, we will meet Sudhir Mungantiwar, the State Finance Minister in Mumbai and discuss our predicament because taxes come under his department. We’re hoping for the best. After this meeting, we’ll decide on our next course of action. Also, as assured by Minister Vijay Deshmukh, they will decide on the categorisation and our grievances by January 15. So we’re biding our time for now.”