[hserus]

First - a reply to the previous post. Then a longer reply to a rather old post I made on this thread.

Originally Posted by satz581993Mille

Thank you so much hserus! I'll stick to this itself then. I'll use the car in Pune and try making trips back to TN periodically. So just to confirm, there's no need to pay the road tax of MH in this case right? Also, what about the NOC? I've heard that PUC certificate is super mandatory in MH.

I think it's about time that the government puts a much simpler procedure in place for all this. Moreover, I believe we should not even have such rules. Every car registered in India should be allowed allowed through out India. :(

If you get a NOC the TN RC book for your car stands invalidated and you absolutely need to move it to a MH RC. The first they will do is get you a MH RC with your TN number - and then you need to wait a couple of months then apply for a MH number. That lets you apply for a tax refund in TN for the road tax you had originally paid when buying the car.

Car registration is a state subject so naturally transfers are state to state and you deal with different state government agencies. Same procedure even in the USA though the DMVs there are possibly easier to deal with than our RTOs.

Now .. Replying to an old post of mine - left the original post in as it has the story so far.

According to them - next steps are that the TN07 RTO will take that certificate, assess a pro rata refund based on the car's age and issue a neft transfer or demand draft of the refund amount, and that it can take a couple of months more.

Took rather more than a couple of months.

The RTO people insisted on the below along with the CRTM and other documents described in my earlier post -

1. Original road tax paid receipt (which was paid by the dealer - and online, so they needed e-acknowledgement, e-receipt, e-challan from the dealer's online payment through SBI, and a letter from the dealer's SBI branch, specifying that the payment had been made on such and such a date, amount, vide [echallan number XXXX], for vehicle with engine / chassis number XXX, and the line "This certificate is issued at the request of Mr. [hserus] for the purpose of applying for refund of RTO tax". Getting a letter from a bank, within a few weeks after demonetization was imposed, was a challenge in itself I can tell you. Again, polite persistence and a willingness to approach officials two or three times over some days helped.

2. A copy of my bank statement (not even cancelled cheque etc was enough) for NEFT transfer purposes.

2. Once this was received they eventually - a month and a half later - dispatched this to the TN government "pay and accounts office" (south) located in Nandanam, which was the concerned PAO for south chennai.

3. The PAO took their own sweet time as well, but last week I got a NEFT transfer into my account with the refunded tax amount. (Which was Rs.45k approx, versus a tax paid of around Rs. 57k).

As they say in online gaming, achievement unlocked.

Originally Posted by hserus

I'm in the process of a TN refund after moving my car TN->KA myself and re-registering in Karnataka (and thanks to tbhpian @waseem and others for several suggestions during the process). It has been a slow-ish process but so far, no bribery.

A lot of running around though. All done myself rather than through an agent, thank god the relevant Chennai RTO is quite close to my home.

All this was unnecessary except that I was going to bangalore for several months during the time the karnataka RTOs were quite eager to collect road tax on cars that were in town for over a month. Well before Waseem and others managed to recently get a high court judgement quashing this. Currently back in Chennai and like @nareshov's friend above, commuting back and forth to Bangalore for work - and to run around the relevant RTO there.

After the re-registration and getting my karnataka RC (a process that took three or four months), now was the time to get my TN tax refunded.

I took copies of my new and old RC books, pollution, insurance, the car's sales invoice together with this other form DT to the Chennai RTO. At this point I had no information beyond various tbhp threads on what specifically was required - nothing documented on the TN RTO (STA) website either.

So the lady at the relevant desk asked me to bring her the original tax paid receipt for the vehicle. You know, the one that the dealer collects as part of the car sale amount and gets your car registered through his broker.

Luckily for me the dealer had paid all his registrations online and so was able to find an accountant in his head office who could scan and whatsapp me a copy within the day. I sent that in along with my application.

Then got told that she would send these documents to the relevant Bangalore RTO for endorsement and it'd take a month. More than a month later - no movement on that. So I went over to the Bangalore RTO (KA51 Electronic City - which had some very polite and helpful staff, full marks to them) and they promptly - well, after a few hours of paperwork - issued me what's called a CRTI. Essentially a letter stating that my car with TN07 xxx, engine yyy and chassis zzz had been re-registered in Karnataka with number KA51-xxx.

They said they'd send that to the TN RTO by speedpost - and what happens but that it just gets lost in the post and never arrives. So I had to make another trip to the KA51 RTO a few weeks later, they were good enough to issue me a second CRTI - this I took with me and hand delivered at the "tappal" (documents reception) section at the TN07 RTO, after getting it initialed by the RTO's PRO (on the same lady official's advice).

The next step - they had to send it to their central records people in their head office because the tax had been paid online rather than as a DD, to issue a certificate that the money paid by the dealer had actually been deposited with the RTO into the state treasury department. No movement a few weeks later, so after asking the lady for details of which office, I went to the head office - in a huge government building complex called Ezhilagam, near the Marina Beach. The computer records section - in an old building allocated to NICNET, behind the main Ezhilagam complex.

Two more friendly officials there - late last week - who explained that as the process of tax refunding an electronically paid lifetime tax was still not computerized it was being handled manually - and they took a printout of the payment from their records, and passed it on to yet another office - in a totally different part of Chennai, mind you, where an official would issue a certificate to the RTO that the LTT money has been received.

According to them - next steps are that the TN07 RTO will take that certificate, assess a pro rata refund based on the car's age and issue a neft transfer or demand draft of the refund amount, and that it can take a couple of months more.

All in all three or four months for the re-registration in bangalore (where I had to use an agent as the RTO was quite far from my apartment) and then maybe six months (of which 4 have been completed so far) for my tax refund in Chennai.

So far polite persistence has worked - though it has meant more half days off than I'd really like. There's at least some actual movement in this case despite the undocumented procedure and extra runarounds.

[satz581993Mille]

Originally Posted by hserus

If you get a NOC the TN RC book for your car stands invalidated and you absolutely need to move it to a MH RC. The first they will do is get you a MH RC with your TN number - and then you need to wait a couple of months then apply for a MH number. That lets you apply for a tax refund in TN for the road tax you had originally paid when buying the car.

So getting an NOC sounds like walking int trouble. I have a feeling that if I go this route, I'm gonna be stuck between the RTOs of both the states for quite sometime and things will get tough if I try to get the car registered with TN again. And, I'm sure as hell that I wouldn't be getting a penny as refund from the RTO.

So, I'll just use the car in Pune without NOC. I'll get a PUC certificate though. I'll surely have to move back to chennai after a year anyway.

[hserus]

You need a pollution under control certificate anyway to keep the car roadworthy. Just go to the nearest petrol pump that has a PUC checking centre and get the certificate by paying around rs. 50 to 100 after the necessary test of your exhaust smoke.

As Maharashtra cops don't seem to care about a TN PUC certificate sometimes, get one from a pune pump and keep it around as well

As for getting an RTO refund .. as I said in my previous post, I managed to get one But I was lucky to run into friendly and professional RTO officials I guess plus anyway had to commute back and forth between chennai and bangalore on work.

Originally Posted by satz581993Mille

So getting an NOC sounds like walking int trouble. I have a feeling that if I go this route, I'm gonna be stuck between the RTOs of both the states for quite sometime and things will get tough if I try to get the car registered with TN again. And, I'm sure as hell that I wouldn't be getting a penny as refund from the RTO.

So, I'll just use the car in Pune without NOC. I'll get a PUC certificate though. I'll surely have to move back to chennai after a year anyway.

[satz581993Mille]

Originally Posted by hserus

As for getting an RTO refund .. as I said in my previous post, I managed to get one But I was lucky to run into friendly and professional RTO officials I guess plus anyway had to commute back and forth between chennai and bangalore on work.

You were surely lucky to have run into friendly RTO people. The RTO experience that I've had so far has been nothing short of miserable. Anyways, I'm not even going to try getting an NOC or a refund.

Everything is rather confusing. Some say that I can drive without any issues without having to pay road tax or anything for upto a year in Maharashtra and some say 6 months. And then, there are these news articles saying that the cops have started a drive to impound any other state car which has been running in MH for over a month.

[hserus]

Originally Posted by satz581993Mille

Everything is rather confusing. Some say that I can drive without any issues without having to pay road tax or anything for upto a year in Maharashtra and some say 6 months. And then, there are these news articles saying that the cops have started a drive to impound any other state car which has been running in MH for over a month.

If you want to avoid uncertainty sell the car in Chennai and buy a new or rather pre owned one in Pune.

The Motor Vehicles Act specifies that you can operate a vehicle for up to one year out of state before having to re register it. However Karnataka imposed a local rule of one month rather than one year and that took two years for a high court judgement to quash it and restore one year .. or I would never have wasted my time registering a car that I was taking back and forth to Chennai and bangalore. Worst thing was they were stopping TN regd cars that had parking stickers of apartments and offices in BLR and impounding them till road tax was collected, even barging into flat and office parking lots to check parked vehicles.

Not sure how over enthusiastic the Mumbai cops will get but I'd suppose they will stick to targeting high end luxury cars with daman, north east or similar dirt cheap registration rather than chase after budget hatchbacks .. but you never know how money hungry they will get. It's never been a huge problem till very recently in Maharashtra.

[satz581993Mille]

Originally Posted by hserus

If you want to avoid uncertainty sell the car in Chennai and buy a new or rather pre owned one in Pune.

Haha, would be easy if I don't love my car. The thing is, I'm not gonna be there in Pune for more than a year for sure. So just for a year, trying to sell a 3 year old car and getting a new one isn't something my finances would support.

Even I'm seeing in many articles that I don't have to pay taxes for upto a year with an out of state car. Anything above that, I'm bound to pay lifetime tax it seems.

[VKS]

^ I relocated from chennai to Pune recently , and have paid the taxes at Pune. Trust me this is a very complicated procedure .

Things here at Pune are better than southern states , you will be better off driving with TN number plates for temporary relocation . If your move is permanent please pay the taxes immediately , as the RTO will impose penalty starting your NOC issue date till the date you re register .

[serious_maniac]

Quick query. Hope that this is relevant here.

I am thinking of buying a Ciaz and use in Bangalore. The OTR price in Bangalore for the same is Rs. 11.8L, while in Delhi owing to hybrid benefits it is much cheaper (OTR of Rs. 10.1 L) . So buying from Delhi is an option as I have my home in Delhi. I do not want to get into issues with road tax in Blr so one option that I have been mulling is to buy the car in Delhi and not register there but bring it to Blr and register here. Is that at all possible?

The difference in ex-showroom price between two cities is Rs. 1 lakh + which is substantial for a 10-11 lakh car.

~m

[hserus]

Originally Posted by serious_maniac

Quick query. Hope that this is relevant here.

I am thinking of buying a Ciaz and use in Bangalore. The OTR price in Delhi (..1 lakh difference)

~m

If you buy a car from out of state there are still other expenses -

1. Ship it from Delhi to Bangalore
2. Pay octroi once it arrives in Bangalore unregistered

The cost difference may not be all that much in the end.

[satz581993Mille]

Originally Posted by VKS

^ I relocated from chennai to Pune recently , and have paid the taxes at Pune. Trust me this is a very complicated procedure .

Things here at Pune are better than southern states , you will be better off driving with TN number plates for temporary relocation . If your move is permanent please pay the taxes immediately , as the RTO will impose penalty starting your NOC issue date till the date you re register .

Hi VKS, thanks for your inputs. My stay there is going to be temporary only. At max, I'll be staying there for a year. What would you recommend? Can I drive around without doing anything for just the year?

[sgiitk]

Today all this is an anachronism. Imagine people who routinely get transferred across states. I hope the GST puts paid to this nonsense. Of course the RTOs make moolah out of these.

I will suggest, common road tax rates across the country, and national registration. They can continue to sing and dance on the fuel taxation.

[satz581993Mille]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

Today all this is an anachronism. Imagine people who routinely get transferred across states. I hope the GST puts paid to this nonsense. Of course the RTOs make moolah out of these.

I will suggest, common road tax rates across the country, and national registration. They can continue to sing and dance on the fuel taxation.

I agree! I feel this is way for the RTO of various states to loot loads of money. 7% of the value is no joke. Even though there is a way to get your original road tax refunded, we know how it works out with the RTO officials.

The worst part is, there is no clear cut information anywhere too. The motor vehicle act says you drive without any issues for upto a year and then there are some states which have their own set of ridiculous rules.

[VKS]

Originally Posted by satz581993Mille

Can I drive around without doing anything for just the year?

Yes , It shouldn't be a problem and you will easily manage for the short duration .

At max you can visit chennai after 6 months and keep the toll receipts. Btw tax will be 9% for petrol and 9+2% for diesel .

[satz581993Mille]

Originally Posted by VKS

Yes , It shouldn't be a problem and you will easily manage for the short duration .

At max you can visit chennai after 6 months and keep the toll receipts. Btw tax will be 9% for petrol and 9+2% for diesel .

Thanks VKS! I'll do just the same. I'll drive back to chennai when possible just for the toll receipts. That's still way better than going through all the trouble getting NOC and paying 9% road tax.

[samabhi]

Originally Posted by prabhul

My colleague was caught last week at Koramangla(Bangalore) by RTO for road tax. The RC book was taken over. He visited RTO office and mentioned that he will not be in KA permanently and paid a yearly tax and got the RC book back.
Is the option of yearly tax available in KA?

P.S.: Yearly tax was Rs.3000

Is this an option still available in KA to pay yearly tax? One of my contacts told me that we could pay the yearly tax at the RTA Border Checkposts? Is it correct?