BANGALORE: The government is considering a luxury tax on weddings that cost more than Rs. 5 lakh, Law Minister T B Jayachandra said on Thursday.
He told reporters the revenue could be used to set up a corpus, called Mangalya Nidhi, to provide incentives for inter-caste and simple marriages.
The government is keen to amend the Karnataka Marriages Regulation and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1976, to introduce the tax, and is inviting citizens to respond to the idea.
“I look forward to a wide debate before we make any move to introduce the bill,” he said. Jayachandra also proposes to make registration of marriages mandatory.
Showy weddings in the cities have adversely impacted the poor. “Many poor families have been ruined as they raise huge loans to conduct weddings and end up losing their property. It is time to stop this trend,” he said.
The government should not remain a mute spectator to the practice, Jayachandra remarked.
He said Kerala already restricts the number of guests at a wedding to 500. “However, we want to be more realistic to the situation here. The ceiling can be 1,000 guests,” he said.
Mechanisms will have to be evolved to monitor wedding costs and the guest turnout, he said.
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