While harried residents fretted and fumed over being made to run around and wait for long to exchange the old high value denomination currencies, the demonetisation brought an unexpected windfall for the City Corporation as city residents were allowed to pay their tax dues with old currencies on Friday. The Corporation had announced that the old high value denomination notes would be accepted for tax payments on Friday. The move received a good response from the city residents with the civic body netting over Rs.2.35 crore in tax revenue during the day.
The civic body was expecting substantial tax receipts over the next few days as people have been allowed to make their tax remittances till November 14 using the old high value denominations. The old Rs.500 and Rs.1000 denomination notes were accepted for tax payments including property and professional tax, water charges, vacant site tax and other tax dues.
Though it was not a big rush as witnessed at the banks, there were sizeable crowds at the 25 computerised tax collection centres of the Corporation, including those at its main office in the city. “This is a better option. Rather than waiting at the banks to exchange the notes, we could make our tax payments here,” said Gopal, a city resident. The Corporation had made arrangements to announce the acceptance of the old high value denominations during the day through public address systems fitted on autorickshaws. The effort did pay off. “There was a good response. People walked in to pay their tax dues till late in the evening,” Corporation Commissioner N.Ravichandran told The Hindu . By evening, the revenue collected had touched Rs.2.35 crore. The service centres, which normally close by 5 p.m., were kept open till 7.30 p.m. as people trickled in the evening too.
According to Corporation officials, the revenue collected was pretty high for a single day especially during this part of the year. The Corporation’s collectible property tax demand for the year was around Rs.47 crore. The water charges demand was around Rs.30 crore. On Friday, most of the tax receipts were under these two heads, officials said.
