Taxation

250 new properties found evading property tax

Saturday, 25 January 2014 09:10 administrator

The Times of India 25.01.2014

250 new properties found evading property tax

Kolhapur: The civic body has found 250 new property owners to be evading taxes. They have not registered with the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation's property tax department.

The drive against property tax defaulters was started in December last year and is expected to be completed by the end of 2014. The contract for assessing properties has been given to Surve Infotech - a city based IT Enabled Service providing company.

The company's director Shantaram Surve said, "The drive is being conducted to bring properties under the ambit of the property tax department and increase the civic body's revenue."

The civic administration is going to issue notices to the owners of the 250 properties and ask them to pay their taxes for the period since construction. The database of properties registered earlier with the department has now been provided to the company. It is now conducting its scrutiny by comparing tax receipts with the property sizes.

In a first phase of the assessment, the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation has identified 250 new properties which are not registered with the property tax department and are found evading the tax.

The drive was started in December last year and is expected to be completed by the end of this year. The contract for assessment of the properties has been given to Surve Infotech- a city based IT Enabled Service providing company.

Shantaram Surve, director of the company said, "We have found 250 new properties the owners of which do not have any receipts for the payment of the property tax. The drive will help to find out such properties and the civic administration will bring them under the ambit of the property tax which will increase its revenue."

The civic administration is going to issue the notices to the owners of these properties and will appeal them to pay the tax for the period since the construction is completed. The earlier database of the properties which are registered with the department have been provided to the company which is now scrutinizing all the properties by cross checking the property tax receipts and the size of the property.

According to the database, there are around 1.25 lakh properties in the city which are registered with the department. "Along with finding new properties we are also scrutinizing the registered ones and therefore to cover all these properties, it will take time of about a year. The last such census of properties was conducted a couple of years ago," added Surve.

According to the civic administration, the data generated from the drive will help them to map the city digitally. The system will have the details such as identification number of the every household, detailed address of the property and the owners name, utility connections, and size of the property on the basis of number of floors, built-up and carpet area.

3 lakh property tax defaulters

Friday, 17 January 2014 06:14 administrator

The Hindu 17.01.2013

3 lakh property tax defaulters

Staff Reporter

List includes three relatives of a prominent politician and a sitting MLA

A senior revenue official stated that there are a total of three lakh property tax defaulters in the city.

Of these, around 30 citizens owe up to Rs. 1 crore and above. Over 600 owe Rs. 1 lakh and above. The Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has compiled a list of those who owe more than Rs. 5 lakh in tax dues. Commissioner M. Lakshminarayan said that the civic body is trying to recover dues from all defaulters.

According to information made available by the civic body, the list of defaulters includes three relatives of a prominent politician of a major regional party and an MLA of the ruling party. The three relatives, including a former MLA, together owe the BBMP as much as Rs. 39.4 crore while the MLA owes Rs. 22.99 crore. Several notices have been issued to the defaulters, a BBMP official claimed. An official, on condition of anonymity, claimed that while two persons have not paid property tax for their commercial establishments for two years, the other two have defaulted for three years in the same category.

Chairperson of the Standing Committee for Taxation and Finance M.S. Shivaprasad told The Hindu that the list containing the names of these four defaulters was prepared over a month ago. “It is not clear at this moment if they have cleared all their dues,” he added.

No tax hike in civic agency’s ’14-’15 budget

Thursday, 09 January 2014 11:14 administrator

The Indian Express 09.01.2014

No tax hike in civic agency’s ’14-’15 budget

Standing Committee Chairman of North Delhi Municipal Corporation Mohan Bhardwaj on Wednesday finalised the civic body's amended budget estimates for the financial year 2013-14 and budget estimates for the year 2014-15, announcing an increase in yearly old-age pension from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 from April 1, 2014.

However, all proposals to increase property tax, theatre tax, sanitation fee for organising social events, road tax, night fee, health and trade licence fees have been rejected.

Along with these, proposals to increase parking rates, usage charges for door-to-door garbage collection, congestion charges for the year 2014-15 have also been excluded from this year's budget. According the corporation's estimates, the move will shield Delhi residents from taxes to the tune of Rs 600 crore annually.

For the financial year 2014-15, the corporation has earmarked Rs 50 lakh for the renovation of roads, Rs 40 lakh for sanitation services, Rs 15 lakh for repair and maintenance of street lights and Rs 50 lakh for development works in each ward "on the basis of suggestions by the citizens".

A sum of Rs 120.75 crore has been earmarked for unauthorised colonies, Rs 31.5 crore for approved colonies and Rs 5 crore each for development works in rural areas and Chhath Puja arrangements.

While Rs 50 crore has been earmarked for regularised colonies and Rs 8 crore will be provided to villages in urban areas. For renovation of roads in villages, Rs 5 crore has been proposed, and another Rs 2 crore for the maintenance of cremation grounds.

With a view to encourage girl students, an amount of Rs 10 crore has been set aside for yearly scholarship of Rs 500 per student. For school uniforms of nursery students, Rs 70 lakh has been allocated, whereas for akharas and gymnasiums, Rs 40 lakh has been earmarked.

Bhardwaj has appealed to officials to make full use of the budget for development works and said a departmental inquiry will be ordered against them if lethargy of dereliction is duty is noticed.

Secunderabad Cantonment Board to seize assets of tax defaulters

Thursday, 09 January 2014 10:13 administrator

Deccan Chronicle 09.01.2014

Secunderabad Cantonment Board to seize assets of tax defaulters

Hyderabad: After taking up the intensive demolition drive against illegal constructions in the last few months, the cash-strapped Secunderabad Cantonment Board has embarked on an unprecedented tax collection spree.

To reach its target of Rs 14 crore (tax due for April-December 2013), SCB even plans to seize movable assets of defaulters if they fail to pay within the notified time.

Officials warned that they would not even accept the due tax in installments from those who had not paid property tax for more than two-three years.

“In December we issued demand notices to over 245 tax defaulters to pay their dues within one month. If they fail to pay it within that time, then we will issue warrant notices with a time period of 15 days. We have orders to go ahead with attaching properties (seizure of moveable properties) of defaulters if they fail to pay within the warrant period,” said M. Narasing Rao, superintendent officer (Tax), SCB.

Some of the major defaulters are St. Andrew High School, YMCA with an outstanding of Rs 41.83 lakh, Mallareddy Estates owes Rs 22 lakh, APSRTC and Jubilee Bus Station, which owes Rs 16 lakh.

Till Wednesday, SCB had collected a total tax of Rs 8 crore. The Board is also requesting property owners to make their payments.

MCC to launch tax collection drive

Friday, 03 January 2014 05:24 administrator

The Hindu 03.01.2014

MCC to launch tax collection drive

R. Krishna Kumar

It will begin this month and extend through February and March, to meet the Rs. 88-crore target

The Mysore City Corporation (MCC) will launch a property tax collection drive from this month, to meet its target of collecting Rs. 88 crore for the financial year 2013–14.

This includes arrears of Rs. 12 crore. Also, against the set target, the authorities have mopped up around Rs. 54 crore so far.

Jagadish, MCC Revenue Officer, told The Hindu that the average rate of collection for a month hovers around Rs. 2 crore to Rs. 2.5 crore.

However, the MCC invigorated its drive in December, which increased the tax collection to nearly Rs. 5 crore.

“Hence, we intend to launch a special collection drive in January and extend it through February and March to meet the target,” Mr. Jagadish said.

The authorities will fan out to all 65 wards in the MCC limits and reach out to the public to facilitate them to pay property tax in their respective wards itself.

This will not only obviate the need for the public to visit the MCC offices, but also eliminate the hassle of standing in queues.

Apart from various grants received by the government, property tax is one of the important source of revenue for the MCC, whose annual budget of nearly Rs. 400 crore is reckoned to be inadequate to meet the rising cost of providing civic amenities and infrastructure, apart from meeting the administrative or running cost. There are nearly 1.72 lakh registered properties in the MCC limits as per records. But, Mr. Jagadish said a fresh survey was on to ascertain the total number of properties — residential as also commercial — which may have come up in the city.

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