Authorities Gear Up To Widen Tax Net, Nab Evaders

It took an outside agency to conduct a survey — of only six wards, mind you —and let the civic authority in Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow know that 23,000 properties which ought to be under the tax net are not covered. As a result of this, the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) is losing out on revenue, the survey indicated. Interestingly, the corporation has been complaining of poor revenue collections. Imagine that amount of indicated revenue loss if the surveyor surveyed all the 110 wards that fall under the LMC! Now, the LMC has decides to widen its tax net.  LMC commissioner, Indramani Tripathi has said that by October this year, a pan-city surveillance should be complete and with the help of drones and advanced techniques, taxable properties would be brought into the tax net.

Same-old story

Lucknow is not alone here. About 75 per cent of the total four lakh properties in Punjab’s Ludhiana are also outside the tax net, reported The Tribune. Several other cities of Punjab face a similar problem.  According to a recent survey, revenue collection of 10 municipal corporations in Punjab has been declining year after year.

The number of defaulters or those who do not pay taxes despite being within the tax net is a separate pool altogether. In Ludhiana alone, 29,000 such defaulters were served notices this year.

In Gurgaon, it is a different story altogether. On receiving bills that contained “incorrect” numbers, several people applied for a correction. They now alleg that they had not received rectified property tax bills. Over 4,000 cases are pending owing to the issue.

On the other hand, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has rolled back the property tax hike it had intended to introduce from this fiscal. The hike was 18 per cent on property tax levied at the rate of about 50 paise for one per sqft. Early this year, the NMC had to take a loan of Rs 100 crore to meet its expenses.

Almost every state in India is now rolling out discounts as well if you pay your property dues before the deadline. Make the most of it.