The Deccan Chronicle 09.11.2010
Corpn in red, goes into tax collection overdriveNov. 8: The city corporation is undergoing a severe financial crunch due to the implementation of new freebie schemes and infrastructure development works. The corporation revenue officers are now feeling the pinch and are forced to work overtime to ensure a surplus flow of funds into the exchequer.
The total tax arrears to the corporation amount to above Rs 400 crore. There are more than 300 people with property tax arrears above Rs 10 lakh each, totalling a staggering amount of over Rs 150 crore — including several posh hotels and IT majors.
With revision due to the sixth pay commission and the corporation expenditure shooting up due to new schemes announced in the corporation budgets, the pressure is high on the revenue department to ensure that the financial burden is lightened through its annual tax collection, sources explained.
“More review meetings are now periodically conducted to ascertain the property tax collection carried out by assistant revenue officials and field assessors on a daily basis and the pressure for collecting arrears is very high,” opined an assistant revenue officer.
The corporation top brass are now directly pulling up field officials and reviewing the defaulters list often. According to the corporation website, as on date there are over 175 major property tax defaulters most of them with property in prime commercial areas.
Usually tax assessors and revenue officials focus on commercial hubs, where the arrears run in crores; then they shifted focus to arrears in lakhs. But now they frequent residential areas where people owe even a few thousands, say sources.
