The Chennai Corporation on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with eight banks for walk-in payment of property tax. Residents will be able to remit property tax at counters of any of the 401 braches of designated banks after June 15.
The banks that signed the MoA in the presence of Mayor Saidai S.Duraisamy include Indian Overseas Bank, Canara Bank, ICICI, IDBI, HDFC, City Union Bank, Axis Bank and Karur Vysya Bank. The signing of MoA has facilitated yet another easy mode of payment for several lakh residents who pay property tax in the city. The counters in the 401 bank branches will accept money, cheque or demand draft for property tax payment.
Residents may use any bill number, either old or new, to pay the property tax at bank counters. The Corporation Council will adopt a resolution after which the banks will start collecting property tax from any of the 10.71 lakh assessees who will also continue to have the option of using the existing modes of tax collection by the Corporation.
The property tax demand for the current year is Rs.477.62 crore. The bank walk-in mode is likely to emerge as yet another dominant mode of property tax collection in the city as there is no service charge for tax collection. The Corporation had launched the walk-in payment facility on a trial basis in 2003 in the old city limits. The mode of tax collection, however, was not successful on account of a number of problems, including reconciliation with banks, as the entire property tax database was not online at that point of time.
Indian Bank, HDFC, ICICI Bank, Dhanalakshmi Bank and State Bank of India were some of the banks that were part of the old system. The system was formally withdrawn in 2009.
The existing modes of payment of property tax include hand-held-devices, net banking, electronic clearance system, collection at counters in zones, headquarters and select divisions and Interactive Voice Response System.
The civic body has started making efforts to facilitate sharing of online property tax of assesses in the newly-added zones of Tiruvottiyur, Manali, Madhavaram, Ambattur, Valasaravakkam, Alandur, Perungudi and Sholinganallur with the banks to facilitate the walk-in payment in added areas too.
