With three days to go for payment of property tax without penal interest, GVMC has collected more than a quarter of its demand for the current year.
To encourage early tax payment, 5 % tax incentive is given for payment of property tax for the entire year in the first month of the financial year. For payment after June 30, a simple interest of 2 % is levied.
The early bird incentive has spurred tax collection and when compared to last year the collection has gone up by more than ₹11 crore, it is learnt.
Till Monday, the collection of property tax was ₹56.5 crore against a collectible demand of ₹ 202 crore for the current financial year.
In comparison, the tax realised in the corresponding period in the last financial year was ₹45.17 crore.
It’s that 5% incentive that is making all the difference. The realisation of ₹ 31.02 crore up to April 30 this year is much higher than the ₹17.54 crore last year.
The payment by June 30 has been increasing by the year in view of the penalty clause. In 2015-16, the collection up to June 30 was ₹31.75 crore but now reached ₹56.5 crore with three days to go. With the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning in its initial stages, collection details are slow to come in, according to sources.
With the last day for payment without interest approaching the average payment was around ₹ 2 crore a day. “In the last three days we expect the collection to peak and touch ₹10 crore,” an official said.
While the incentive is not offered in May and June, it is the levy of interest after June 30 that brings in more payments in the last few days.
