The excise duty on small cars and two-wheelers will come down from 12 to 8 per cent.
Every time, our finance minister announces the country’s budget around this time of the year. And since a few things become cheaper and the rest expensive, we have to adjust our monthly budgets around it. But this time around, our finance minister, P Chidambaram didn’t make us richer or poorer!
In the budget announced on February 17, he just stated our country’s income and expense figures. That’s because this budget is for the interim period until the new government is formed.
However, to give him the credit, he did make a few things affordable for us to buy and to repay. All those of you who are planning to buy a car this year, the good news is that with the reduction in excise duty on cars and two-wheelers, you don’t have to postpone it to a later date as car prices have been slashed.
For students, who took education loans from public sector banks before April 1, 2009, there is a relief granted as the interest overdue on December 31, 2013 will be waived off.
The budget also announced that the excise duty on small cars and two-wheelers will come down from 12 to 8 per cent, for medium-sized cars from from 24 to 20 per cent, and for sports utility vehicles it’s down from 30 to 24 per cent.
Even car manufacturers have lost no time in passing on this benefit to us. Within three days, large car manufacturers have reduced their prices across the board. For instance, Maruti’s Alto is cheaper by around Rs.12,000 and Volkswagen Polo is cheaper by Rs.18,000 to Rs.31,000.
The excise duty benefit on large cars and SUVs is anywhere between Rs.40,000 to Rs.2 lakh. And two-wheelers such as Honda bikes will cost Rs.1600 to Rs.7600 less depending on the model.
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