The Hindu 15.06.2011
‘Corporation's online calculator overestimates property tax'
The Mysore City Corporation (MCC) provides a calculator on its website, www.mysorecity.gov.in/ ptisnn/citizen/Before CreateCitizen Sas.do#, which is supposed to calculate property tax. “But, for multistoreyed buildings, the calculator overestimates tax. The calculator is not just incorrect, but it also violates laws,” claimed the Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP).
According to Section 109 of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976, property tax is assessed on value of the building plus value of the land it is built on. Vacant land around the building is exempt from tax.
“The MCC's calculator calculates value of land for each floor of the building. For a multistoreyed building, the value of the land and the tax on it must be calculated only once as all floors of the building stand on the same land, but the calculator does it for each floor, thus overestimating the tax. Owners of such buildings who use the MCC calculator are paying higher property tax than they should,” according to P.M. Bhat of MGP. The calculator — as well as all MCC property records — measures dimensions in feet. It is amazing that even after 50 years of banning this British unit of measurement and adopting the metric system, MCC has still not adopted it, he said.
“The Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1956, had made metre the official unit of length in India. The Government and the public were given a grace period of six years to switch to the metric system. In fact, Section 80 of the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 (which replaced the 1956 Act) mandated that non-metric measures should not even be stated in any enactment, notification, rule or order of the Government,” Mr. Bhat said in a press release here.
In fact, using a calculator to calculate property tax afresh every year was itself illegal, he claimed. Section 109A of the KMC Act said property tax shall not be assessed each year but shall stand enhanced by 15 per cent once every three years.
‘It calculates value of land for each floor, when it should be done just once'
MCC has still not adopted the metric system
