Buy your car right now – tomorrow might be too late

Prices of many cars and SUVs dropped, post-GST. They are about to bounce back and go even higher.

Post GST implementation, the prices of SUVs and luxury cars saw a massive drop. In Mumbai, cars like Rolls Royce Phantom saw a drop of Rs. 67 lakh. The GST panel is still ironing out the newly rolled tax structure and is changing tax slabs on various items post the roll out. The panel has now decided to raise cess on luxury automobiles, SUVs and sedans above 4-metre with more than 1.5-litre engine.

The panel has already passed a 10% rise in the cess for all the categories of vehicles excluding the sub 4-metre segment. The tax will rise from current 15% to 25%. Currently, all these vehicles are charged the highest category of tax, which is 28%. With the other taxes included, the total tax on luxury vehicles is 43%. After the increase in the cess, the total tax will be 53% of the value of the vehicle.

The panel will also increase tax for the SUVs after several auto manufacturers protested that both hybrid vehicles and SUVs are being kept in the same tax slab even though the SUVs are much more polluting.

When will it be implemented?

The decision has been approved but it will take some time before the GST compensation law is modified through an amendment. It will still take some time before the prices are affected. People who are planning to get above 4-metre cars, luxury cars and SUVs in a couple of week’s time should not be worried about the extra tax but people who are planning to get such vehicles later this year will be affected by the price revision.

How big will the price increase be?

Pre-GST, the tax for various segments of vehicles were set differently. Post-GST, apart from small cars below 4-metre, tax on all other vehicles is set at 43%. Before GST was implemented, cars above 4-metre were in 46.6% tax, luxury vehicles were in the 51.8% tax slab while SUVs were in 55.3% tax slab. With the new recommendations, the prices of luxury cars will be higher than the pre-GST implementation prices, which will mean a huge increase in all the vehicle prices except the sub 4-metre segment. The tax will effectively increase the price by 7% on the cars like Honda City, 1.2% on the luxury sedans and will decrease around 2.3% on the prices of SUVs against the pre-GST prices.

What will be the estimated price?

Above 4-metre sedans: Honda City – Rs. 9.3 lakh – 14.76 lakh (Current price Rs. 7.94 – 11.66 lakh)

SUVs above 4-metre: Hyundai Creta – Rs. Rs. 10.2 lakh – 16.09 lakh (Current price Rs. 9.28 -14.63 lakh)

Jeep Compass: Rs. 16.44 lakh – Rs. 22.71 lakh (current price Rs. 14.95 – 20.65 lakh)

Toyota Fortuner: Rs. 24.4 lakh – 29.17 lakh (current Rs. 26.84 – 32.08 lakh)

Via: ET