Civic body goofs on property tax

Ramkrishan Upadhyay

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 24

Had Naveen Miglani, an industrialist, not kept the receipts of property tax deposited in the past, his industrial plot could have been attached by the local Municipal Corporation.

Miglani was shocked when he got a property attachment notice of Rs 66,000 for “arrears of pending property tax” from the MC last month. When he checked the records, he found that he had deposited the property tax and not a single rupee was pending against him. When Miglani showed his record to MC officials, they admitted their mistake and issued an NOC that there were no arrears pending against him.

Miglani is not the only industrialist to have faced this problem. Hundreds of property owners have been issued notices by the MC for tax which they have already deposited. Those who have kept the receipts are lucky, while those who have misplaced these are facing harassment.

In the absence of proper records, the MC is sending property tax notices to even those who have paid the tax.

Another industrialist, Rajan Gupta, got a notice for the recovery of Rs 70,000 tax, which was reduced to Rs 500 when he showed the receipts.

Sunil Aggarwal, also an industrialist, who was asked to pay Rs 54,000, showed his receipts after which his tax was reduced to Rs 2,000.

Miglani said property tax was levied in 2004 and industrialists were asked to deposit the tax on a self-assessment basis because at that time, the MC didn’t know how to go about the billing business.

“The MC has been issuing bills every year since 2007 and we are making payments as per the bills. However, now a majority of the industrial plot holders have received demand notices for some differential amount of property tax for 2004 to 2007 period, along with interest for around 15 years. How can they demand an amount after 15 years, that too with interest from a retrospective date,” he said.

He termed it illegal, illogical and baseless. He said the MC had no records and was charging arrears according to its whims and fancies. He said it was asking plot holders to bring receipts of the past 10-15 years, and those who failed to produce these were being charged property tax for the missing receipts along with interest.

Anil Kumar Garg, Additional Commissioner, MC, accepted  that   in many cases,  they did not have proper  records.  In such cases,  the  MC was rectifying its mistakes  after checking the  records from the  owners.  The civic body is making attempts to maximise its tax collection as the financial year is coming to an end. The  MC has  so far collected  Rs 48  crore this year, which is  Rs 8  crore more that the collections made last year.

Receipts come in handy for industrialist

Naveen Miglani, an industrialist, was shocked when he got a property attachment notice of Rs 66,000 for “arrears of pending property tax” from the MC last month. When he checked the records, he found that he had deposited the tax. When he showed his receipts to MC officials, they admitted their mistake and issued an NOC that there were no arrears pending against him.