The Indian Express       14.11.2013

PMC looks for ways to increase LBT revenue

LAGGING far behind in reaching the half mark of revenue collection estimate of budget in first six months of the financial year, the PMC has geared up to increase revenue collection from local body tax (LBT) by seeking information from various state government authorities, including RTO, sales tax, stamps and registration office, to ascertain the transactions by traders.

"The revenue collection in the first six months is low and has raised concern of the civic administration. Thus, it has been decided to boost the revenue collection by taking help of other government authorities to ascertain the business in various sector and accordingly recover LBT from traders. The details of automobile sector would be sought from RTO while information from registration office would reveal details of real estate business and sales tax data would enable information on business of consumer goods," said Vishal Tambe, chairperson of the standing committee.

He said the civic administration will analyse the data and initiate necessary steps to recover LBT from traders. "The traders would be penalised for not depositing LBT as per the business," Tambe said.

The standing committee chairperson further said that the administration would also undertake a special drive from from November 15 to December 31 to identify unassessed properties in the city. "Efforts would be made to bring unassessed properties in the tax ambit and increase the collection from property tax," he said.

Recently, the civic chief had directed all civic departments to be careful in spending funds with an appeal to start new projects only if they are very necessary. The civic administration had projected a shortage of Rs 1,000 crore of the Rs 4,167 crore budget.