Cost of luxury goes up

The Finance Minister’s announcement to increase customs duty on imported vehicles means that people will have to fork out an additional Rs 20-40 lakh to own cars like Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini. In the Union Budget, customs duty on completely built units of cars, SUVs and multi-utility vehicles (MUVs) costing $40,000 (Rs 20 lakh) or above and having engine capacity of more than three litres in case of petrol and 2.5 litres in case of diesel variants, was increased from 60 per cent to 75 per cent. As many as 500-600 vehicles in this range are imported into the country every year and this market is growing at a comfortable clip of over 30 per cent annually. For company appointed dealers of Ferrari, Rolls Royce and Lamborghini operating in Delhi and Mumbai, the duty increase, along with other taxes and local levies, will take the final price increase to 20-25 per cent.