The Hindu 06.01.2014
Corporation likely to see rise in revenue
S.R. Praveen
Assessment to be as per new building tax slabs
The upcoming implementation of new building tax slabs in
the City Corporation area is likely to enhance the local body’s
revenue.
Until now, buildings were classified as
residential and commercial. All commercial buildings, including
government offices and private companies, were being taxed at the same
rate.
In the government order (GO) of March 27, 2013,
the commercial category was broken down further into shops, offices,
auditoriums, conference halls, restaurants, workshops, lodges, schools,
trade union offices, service stations etc. to enable better tax
collection. This GO is an amended version of another one, issued by the
previous Left Democratic Front government in January 2011.
“The
work on the classification of the buildings and detailed mapping
according to the area is going on. We are checking for illegal
constructions, which includes some government buildings. The tax
collection is expected to increase by 20 per cent,” P. Shyamkumar,
chairman of the Tax Appeals Standing Committee of the City Corporation,
said.
The tax on buildings used as trade union
offices might come down as per the new assessment. Many of the
government buildings had remained out of the radar of building taxes for
various reasons.
“In the case of Central government
buildings, the directive was to exempt them from building taxes and
collect a service tax instead. But, due to the lack of proper guidelines
from the government, this did not take off. So, no tax is collected
from most of the Central government buildings,” Revenue Officer A.
Unnikrishnan Nair said.
This gets more complicated in
the case of Central government institutions that became corporate
entities. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) does not pay any building tax
but it continued to claim exemption as its buildings were still under
the ownership of the Centre. The issue was in court. This problem was
common to all local bodies, sources said.
In a tax
reassessment exercise by the local body last year, many government-owned
buildings, including the Assembly complex at PMG, ended up getting a
huge bill. The Assembly’s case was referred to the State government by
the Corporation. The Pattoor waste treatment plant also got a bill of
Rs.10,000 and a reduction of 30 per cent was later given by the appeals
committee.
