MC seals 8 shops, collects Rs 22 lakh tax

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 24

The property tax wing of the Municipal Corporation (MC) sealed 17 commercial establishments of tax defaulters here on Friday. Meanwhile, of them, nine property owners paid their pending tax on the spot and MC officials opened the seals.

The properties of the remaining eight defaulters are still sealed. The MC has been regularly sealing properties of tax defaulters for the last four days. Most of these shops are in interior areas of the city.

Officials of the property tax wing claim that they have collected Rs 22 lakh and more than 500 property tax owners paid the tax today.

Daljit Singh, Nodal Officer for property tax, said, “We are visiting the properties of tax defaulters regularly. Notices have been issued to all defaulters. In case of non-payment of the tax, we will seal the property. It would continue till the end of this fiscal (March 31).”

The MC collected Rs 31.60 crore in property tax till this evening. Officials of the property tax claim that it is Rs 6 crore more than the amount which they had collected till March 24. The MC officials are expecting that they will collect Rs 35 crore till the end of the fiscal. The MC had conducted a scrutiny of the tax paid by a prominent mall on the GT Road and asked them to pay Rs 27 crore pending towards them. The shopping mall authorities moved the court and got a stay on the matter. If the mall authorities pay the pending amount, the MC will easily achieve the target of Rs 50 crore.

This year the number of tax payers has increased. The MC authorities claim that around 101,200 property owners have paid the tax till date.