The Indian Express             28.11.2013 

PMC raids commercial units, penalises owners for evading LBT

With the state government giving a green signal to raid premises of traders, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has started conducting searches at commercial units which have failed to deposit local body tax (LBT) for the current financial year.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Rajendra Jagtap said the PMC has so far raided 16 commercial units and penalised owners for not paying tax for imported goods.

"Our action is concentrated on traders who have not paid LBT to the civic body. The traders are identified through various search mechanisms, including collecting data from various agencies and procuring documents of traders from the octroi department of PMC," said Jagtap, adding, the drive would continue to recover the tax amount.

The PMC has 69,000 traders registered for LBT, including 55,000 registered with sales tax department.

Civic body's LBT department head Vilas Kanade said the PMC had given sufficient opportunities to traders to register themselves for LBT.

"There is no reason for anyone to oppose the PMC action as traders evading tax have failed to abide by the government regulations," he said, adding, the PMC collected Rs 750 crore LBT in the first seven months of the current financial year.