Goods and service tax has proven a heavy tax scenario on to the Ambulance category vehicles as 10 to 13 seater Ambulance vehicles are now completely halted for sales. According to the industry experts, the issue which has been concluded is that the ambulance vehicles are not on the list of exempted items. And without the exemption, the ambulance vehicles are bound to be sold at the higher slab rate of 28 percent tax.
As the ambulance vehicles are included in the exemption list from the starting, this time the situation is worse. The ambulance vehicles come under the HSN code of 8702 which have not been mentioned in the vehicles slab rates in HSN code pdf released by the government. The Mathur told that along with the driver and other 9 capacity passengers vehicles whose codes are 8703 coming in the Ambulance category while there was no tax applicable on it previously. But due to some error, the code HSN of 8702 was not mentioned in the exempted list. This error led to the applicability of 28 percent slab rate on the ambulance.
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For the reason, many of the manufacturers have stopped the production of the ambulance dedicated vehicles. On the other side, the retailers are also not purchasing these vehicles making a drought like the situation the market for these vehicles.
In the middle of all this, there has been an all day running emergencies for the patients in the hospital. It was also taken admitted by the government that the mistake which has occurred by omitting of HSN code 8702 in the slab rate will be rectified soon and it will be included in the list but still there is no change, modification or rectification of the slab rate list.
Siam Director General Vishnu Mathur said that “The rate at which it is now (28 percent tax and 15 percent cess) should be the same. If it is increased, then it will increase the prices of small and medium cars.” Earlier the government had accepted a tax rate after so many discussions but now the complications are not rising at very high pace.
