The Chennai Corporation Council on Monday passed a resolution seeking government approval to disconnect water and power supply to houses and business establishments that do no pay property tax.
After government approval is given, every six months, the civic body will send a list of defaulters from among the 10.71 lakh property tax assesses to the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) and Metrowater.
The list will be of those buildings that have failed to pay their tax even 15 days after the deadline. Power and water supply will be restored only after the property tax is remitted.
The civic body will send a notice to defaulters before disconnecting their utilities.
The number of assessees in the city has increased from 6.62 lakh to 10.71 lakh after the recent expansion of the city limits. This has led to a rise in number of assessees who fail to pay their property tax on time.
The civic body is struggling to cope with inadequate property tax collection even after conducting a campaign to create awareness among residents.
Since other civic agencies such as Tangedco and Metrowater are able to collect their service charges because residents fear power and water supply will be disconnected, the Corporation has decided to take a leaf out of their books to step up its collection of property tax. This measure was decided upon based on a study of buildings in the city.
As part of its efforts to increase tax collection, the civic body has set a target of setting up 2,000 bank counters in the city for walk-in payments of property tax. So far, it has set up the facility in several counters including those in IDBI, HDFC, Indian Overseas Bank, City Union Bank and Karur Vysya Bank.
The total property tax charges in the city for this year amount to Rs. 477.62 crore from 10.71 lakh assessees.
Keywords: property tax defaulters, Chennai Corporation
Collection of Metro water tax and charges and property tax payments may be done by one agency since the docket number is assigned the same for both. Instead of making the common man to go to different offices to remit the taxes and charges, the payments may be made at both the offices. The corporation should also consider taking streetwise details and for which updating the street names and door numbers is the need of the hour. Many of the houses in Vijayanagar had to use only the plot numbers assigned by the landdeveloper and no action taken by the corporation to update their records with the existing usage of names for the new born streets. once these things are done I am sure collection of property tax would be punctual, and there will be no complaints for wrong entries or mistaken account debits.
I read somewhere that a receipt for Rs 4 was sent from the corporation
to a person who has paid Rs 4,000 plus as property tax!! How callous can
the department get and they are speaking about water and power
disconnections!
The roads which was in good condition before is damaged in the name of renovation.The officials said that We need to improve the road system before the monsoon and started digging the roads.The house owners has laid their house entrance neatly.Even this was destroyed completely by the officials saying that they are going to lay a good and complete tar road.But the situation was reverse.Most of the drainage system was damaged, BSNL connection was cut for about 1 month, pedestrians and vehicle users facing more difficulties, till now no road was laid.The road which was good before is damaged ultimately and this situation remains the same till now (even the monsoon has started). This is the mistake of the incharges who are responsible for this.we people are paying tax for public welfare but see the case here.
The Corporation after giving an assessment order to me, is demanding
more property tax retrospectively. The tax recovery officer tells me
that there could have been a suo motu revision by the corporation. How
is such a move justified? My offer to pay as per the assessed value has
been spurned by the official.
In Zone XIV corporation of chennai they are asking Rs 5000 bribe for new property
tax assessment.
Sewerage mix water is supplied to houses and erratic power supply with
scheduled 2 hours daily and 9 to 5 monthly once power cut. Other than
these there are unscheduled power cuts in the name maintenance and
breakdowns. Citing these facilities given, the corporation of Chennai is
blackmailing middle class to pay property tax.
Looks ridiculous on the part of corporation of chennai, to disconnect water and power connection for Property tax defaulters.What the Tax collectors are dong, and why not corpn issue notice and past the same on the front door of each property which will be a eyesore forthose who watch this,as well the onwers who default.It is possible, that tax collectors go on collecting the money and not issuing receipts as well,and enjoying the collected money as well.Best way is to make a processional by the officers to each street, and announcing issuance of receipts for all on the spot collection and also issue notice of perpetual defaulters without fear or favour.yet in political india, corruption takes the first place.what to do?
Why the corporation is silent about the complaints wrt to property tax payments. For no fault of mine, i have been running from pillar to post to sort out an data feed error made by the tax collector! The TC, wholly responsible for the mess, coolly says no more updates to the system! I have been promptly paying the tax till the data feed issue propped up. I havent been able to pay online or directly as i ought to pay once again for the period already paid! There has been no response to the letters sent to the officials!
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