The Hindu 14.02.2013
MGP takes MCC to court over ‘illegal’ taxes
The Mysore Grahakara Parishat has filed a case in a Mysore court for permanent injunction, restraining the Mysore City Corporation (MCC) from levying taxes not permitted under the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976.
In a release, MGP president Shrimati Hariprasad said many taxes being levied by MCC were illegal, and the procedure adopted by the corporation to calculate some of them was also illegal.
For example, in calculating property tax, MCC permits an annual depreciation of the value of buildings, based on a Government Order. But this does not any backing in the KMC Act.
The corporation cited section 109A of the Act as the basis for allowing 50 per cent rebate for self-occupation. “But section 109A [in that form] was repealed in 2005,” the MGP said.
The parishat took umbrage to the fact that citizens were being made to calculate property tax afresh every year. The KMC Act stated that property tax shall not be assessed each year but stand enhanced by 15 per cent once in three years. “Forcing citizens to calculate the property tax every year is illegal and liable to be restrained and quashed,” the note added.
Besides, health, anti-beggary, library, vacant site cleaning and UGD cess, all of which are included while computing property tax, were levied on the basis of various government orders and did not have the sanction of the KMC Act, it said.
