The Indian Express         15.10.2013

From today onwards, you can deposit house tax

City residents will be able to deposit property tax on residential property from Monday onwards at the sampark centres as well as the Municipal Corporation office.

Self-assessment of the tax is to be done by the residents between October 14 and December 14. Thereafter, the civic body will impose fine. The tax amount paid will be for a period of one year.

The UT Administration had notified the imposition of house tax on July 4. The tax has to be paid at the rate of Re 1 per square yard. The houses below five marla and those of the economically weaker sections have been exempted. The houses in villages and colonies have also been exempted. There are more than 80,000 houses that will come under the ambit of the newly imposed tax.

The residents can download the form from the website of the Municipal Corporation. The facility to pay the tax will be available at the e-sampark and gram sampark centres. At these centres, the residents will have to pay Rs 9 and Rs 4 respectively as transaction charges.

There are 20,265 marla and kanal houses, 7,979 houses in co-operative societies, 5,597 MIG houses, 10,675 HIG houses, 15,053 houses under the administration and 22,040 under the Central government. In the case of co-operative housing societies, the tax will have to be paid taking the area of the society as one unit. This will then be divided by the total number of units and accordingly each household will have to pay the tax. The move is being resented by the residents of these societies.

The residents of 5-marla houses will have to pay Rs 125 while those owning 6-marla houses will have to pay Rs 150 per year. The amount for other houses will be: Rs 187.50 for 7.5-marla houses, Rs 200 for 8-marla, Rs 250 for 10-marla, Rs 275 for 11-marla, Rs 375 for 15-marla and Rs 500 for one-canal house.

The tax has been imposed to fulfil one of the conditions under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.