Chandigarh Mayor Davesh Moudgil on 4th june, 2018 directed the MC officials concerned to act strictly against property tax defaulter institutions, including government offices of UT, Punjab and Haryana, colleges, education institutes, private and government schools located in the city. He asked them to issue notices to the defaulters to deposit the levy within one month or face legal action which will include sealing of buildings.
There is confusion over house tax notices served by the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation with arrears is a major issue for residents and industrialists. Residents and industrialists of Sector 47 and Industrial Area, phases I and II took it up with additional commissioner, MC Anil Garg. They asked why the civic body is asking residents to pay house tax and property tax for the period when it was not even imposed in the city.
Bhupinder Singh Saini, an industrialist of industrial area phase I, said the MC served property tax notices saying industrialists have to pay tax with arrears from 2004 even though tax was imposed in 2007, as authorities do not have tax payers’ records. He said the tax department is not responding to the communications of industrialists. He said he wrote three letters to the department but has not received reply to a single one.
Baljinder Singh Bittu, president of FOSWAC asked the mayor to extend the deadline for deposition of house tax for residents as they got less time to pay tax. He also said a large number of residents received notices due to miscalculation of house tax. He said that residents received notices on March 21, 2018 through the courier letter dated March 1, 2018 and they were asked to pay tax by March 31, 2018 which is not possible.
Chandigrah mayor Davesh Moudgil said that Chandigarh has around 1,52,000 properties. Initially, when the self-assessment scheme of paying property tax was introduced, people did not fill the right assessment. Properties were on the higher side and their assessment was wrong. They had around 22,000 taxpayers before notices were sent to residents. They toned down the language of notices and sent around 15,000 property tax notices. In the last six months, around 300 returns were filed every day and they collected around Rs 40 lakh per day. They also collected Rs 42 crore as property tax in the last six months. Moudgil added that they need money to have a smart city and that tax should not be a burden for the city residents.
Additional commissioner Anil Garg said that this property tax is a self-assessment scheme and they were compelled to send notices since people did not come forward to pay property tax. Every resident is supposed to come forward and pay this tax since it is a self-assessment scheme.
The directions came during a meeting held by the Mayor with officials of the tax branch of the civic body. He instructed the officials to issue reminders to the government offices and other institutes to deposit property tax. Further default on payment would invite legal action and sealing of buildings as per Section 138 of the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation Act.
Courtesy/By: Manav Chordia
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09 Jun 2018
