Urban News

Indian Express 06.01.2010

To nail tax evaders, govt offers MCD geographic survey details

The biggest municipality in South and Southeast Asia, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), also is one of the poorest.

The reason: property tax collected this year comes from merely 20 per cent of existing property owners. Now, the civic body is planning to force tax evaders to pay up.

For this, the Delhi government has sent a proposal to the MCD to use Delhi State Spatial Data Infrastructure to increase its collection. The geo-spatial survey of Delhi reveals that though tax is collected only from eight lakh properties, more than 40 lakh properties exist in the city.

The proposal sent by the government’s IT department entails that all manual property tax data available with the MCD be integrated with the data generated from GIS (Geographic Information System) survey done by Delhi State Spatial Data Infrastructure.

The idea is to centrally manage all property records.

IT Secretary Savitur Prasad said: “The property holders may be given a unique id and a tamperproof property passbook with feature like bio-cryptic barcode or latent image security.”

The move will ensure that records of all stakeholders can be then updated centrally. The property holders will be charged one-time for database creation and issuance of the passbook. The assessment, tax collection and related administrative process shall be done by the MCD. The IT department has also suggested that the Jeevan interface can be used for payment of property tax, sources said.

The civic body will now hold a meeting with the Delhi government next week to discuss the proposal.

The Hindu 05.01.2010

Municipality plans to revise tax, other charges

Serena Josephine. M

PUDUCHERRY: A thorough revision of taxes and charges levied by the Puducherry Municipality has been proposed. The revision is aimed at augmenting the municipality’s revenue, which is about Rs. 20 crore a year at present.

The proposed modifications in tax and fee structures will be placed before the council for approval. On being cleared, it will be submitted to the government for its consent, officials said.

Revisions have been proposed for property/house tax, entertainment tax, cable television, profession tax, advertisement tax, and charges being collected by the municipality for various services such as stall rent, trade licences, parking fees, “adikasu,” pavement rent, stamp duty and issuance of birth/death certificates.

The municipality has also proposed to introduce city entry fee, user charge for garbage collection, fee for installation of telecom towers and cycle/motorcycle parking on major roads.

“The taxes have not been revised for a long time. As a result, house tax, for instance, has become very low compared to previous assessment before 2005. There has been 30 to 40 per cent drop and the value of tax for houses is very low,” Municipal Commissioner D. Asokan said.

Only a nominal increase has been suggested for other taxes, he said, adding, “This proposal is to augment revenue. We need annual revenue of at least Rs. 35 crore for carrying out routine work.”

For property/house tax, the municipality has proposed to withdraw grant of 50 per cent concession on rent value based on location and construction, and suggested levying tax on the annual rent value basis to scale up revenue to Rs. six crore a year. Profession tax of Rs. 600 has been proposed for those with half-year income of Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 1,200 for those with half-year income of above Rs. 25,000. By increasing parking charges at the New Bus Stand, the municipality could fetch a revenue of Rs. 50 lakh against the existing Rs. 25 lakh every year through auction, the proposal suggested.

It has planned to earmark parking spaces at congested locations and charge for parking of cycles/motorcycles. “We are planning to bring in user charges for garbage collection. This is necessary for scientific method of garbage removal,” he said.