Property tax is the annual amount paid by a land owner to the local government or the municipal corporation of his area. The property includes all tangible real estate property, his house, office building and the property he has rented to others. Recently Pune civic body recovered Rs 994 crore worth of property tax, said a statement issued by property tax department of PMC. Owners of residential properties in Pune are liable to pay property tax every year to the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) or the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), based on the location of their property. The Department has said to be recovered this tax amount between March 31, 2017 and till March 7 of this year.
In a bid to automate the entire property tax assessment process, the PMC began geo-tagging properties all over the city. In July 2017, it was reported that of the eight lakh properties under its purview, 2.5 lakh had been mapped, using the Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. All properties are expected to be mapped, by January 2018. This exercise is expected to help the PMC to quickly identify unassessed and illegal properties and defaulters who haven’t paid their property tax and in turn, significantly increase the revenue for the municipal body. The divisional inspectors have been told to complete their targets. Use of music bands and other squads has been increased for better recovery from defaulters. The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation has also put focus on commercial establishments for recovery of property tax and penalty arrears. PCMC has already issued notices to 1.13 lakh owners of commercial as well as residential establishments for recovery of property tax and penalty arrears. The notices have been issued to property holders with tax arrears of over Rs 5,000. As per the civic body, there are around one lakh unauthorized constructions in the city. The target for current financial year is Rs 1862 crore. Last year, the civic body mopped up around Rs1, 200 crore through property tax collection. The next year’s target has been revised by Rs52 crore. In Pune, property tax is the second largest source of revenue. The issue of revenue from property tax made the headlines when hike of 15% was proposed on property tax by the elected members. This was opposed by the civic activists and instead they demanded steps to recover tax from errant property owners. The general body of the PMC denied the hike on the tax. This was a relief to the citizens of Pune.
The PMC offers special rebates in property tax for properties owned by women and ex-servicemen. It also offered 10% discount to tax payers who clear their property tax between April 1 and May 31st in the particular financial year subjected that the tax amount should not be more than Rs.25, 000.
The strict rules and easy policies such as online and doorstep payments followed by the PMC for the collection of property tax is right step in order to bring all the defaulters and to recognize all the unauthorized constructions in the city and to bring them under its purview. As the payment of property tax results in the low administrative costs when compared to other taxes. A property tax payer also avails benefits from the community he is staying in. Services like fire and ambulance; trash and recycling pickup; leaf and lawn waste pick up; public libraries; street cleaning and plowing; school funding and other special projects of the community will be availed by the tax payer. Property tax systems are more open and visible than those for other taxes as property owners can examine their assessments and those of nearby properties; they have the opportunity to appeal the assessment; and they are usually faced with a bill that shows their entire liability, which makes the full magnitude of the tax obvious.
Courtesy/By: Saumya Singh
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05 May 2018
