Lakshmana pointed out that despite provisions to government buildings, they have been omitted from the ambit of tax. If not all government buildings, at least profit making government office buildings could be made to cough up tax. Lakshmana cited the example of the railway buildings in the city.

Most importantly, the MCC could get richer at least by Rs 50 crore if the civic body plans to collect tax from 40,000 houses in 15 layouts developed by the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) alone. That apart, there are 40 more private layouts, including revenue layouts, that could fill the MCC coffers further.

Lakshmana urged Bhyrappa to look into the complaints of 12 prominent places in the city where tax is not being paid according to self-assesment scheme (SAS).

Revision in tax

Bhyrappa reiterated that the new property tax will come into effect only from the next financial year.

This follows Lakshmana’s reminder to Bhyrappa for a customary hike of 15 per cent in property tax from the next fiscal (2014) in the gamut of law. Lakshmana said, following the recent meeting on the move to hike property tax, there is an apprehension among the people anticipating an immediate hike in the tax slab. According to the gazette notification in the year 2005, the new tax slab came into effect under SAS, with a rider of automatically increasing the property tax up to 15 per cent once in every three years. After the previous hike in the year 2008 and 2011, the hike is due in the next year.