The Indian Express 28.11.2013
PMC raids commercial units, penalises owners for evading LBT
With the state government giving a green signal to raid premises of
traders, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has started conducting
searches at commercial units which have failed to deposit local body tax
(LBT) for the current financial year.
Additional Municipal Commissioner Rajendra Jagtap said the PMC
has so far raided 16 commercial units and penalised owners for not
paying tax for imported goods.
“Our action is concentrated on traders who have not paid LBT to
the civic body. The traders are identified through various search
mechanisms, including collecting data from various agencies and
procuring documents of traders from the octroi department of PMC,” said
Jagtap, adding, the drive would continue to recover the tax amount.
The PMC has 69,000 traders registered for LBT, including 55,000 registered with sales tax department.
Civic body’s LBT department head Vilas Kanade said the PMC had
given sufficient opportunities to traders to register themselves for
LBT.
“There is no reason for anyone to oppose the PMC action as
traders evading tax have failed to abide by the government regulations,”
he said, adding, the PMC collected Rs 750 crore LBT in the first seven
months of the current financial year.
