The Times of India         26.11.2013

MC wing rejects property tax hike proposal

CHANDIGARH: The house tax sub-committee of the Chandigarh municipal corporation on Monday rejected the proposal of the tax branch of the civic body to revise the amount of the property tax of commercial, industrial and institutional properties of the city. The committee unanimously asked the department to first recover the pending amount and sought removal of anomalies in tax collection system, instead of enhancing the tax. The committee members also gave proposal to enhance the date of filing the residential tax amount under self assessment scheme (SAS) from two to five months to escape any kind of penalty or other additional charges.

While discussing the issue to revise the existing tax amounts of commercial properties, member of the committee said there should be proper computerization of the account wing, which presently was lacking.

"It is very surprising that account wing of the MC is not properly equipped and even they don't have proper records to pendency and filing of taxes. Therefore, we have asked to first change the manual system of account wing into computerization. We unanimously rejected the agenda pertaining to revise the property tax on commercial properties of the city," said MP Kohli, committee member. The members asked the accounts wing to make the tax filling forms in the residential properties simpler instead of asking public to fill tricky information. "We had just asked to take the information regarding the name, area and plot size of the person concerned, but the forms are too tricky to understand. Therefore, we have asked to remove all such information," said a member of the committee.