Although the Hubballi Dharwad Municipal Corporation cleared at its February 28 council meeting a hike of 15 per cent in property tax tariff, the approval to implement two previous hikes with retrospective effect means that the residents have to pay 45 per cent more.
At the monthly council meeting on that day, the municipal commissioner proposed a hike of 25 per cent in property tax for residential buildings, non-residential, non-commercial buildings and open sites, and 30 per cent for commercial buildings, fetching Rs. 67.64 crore revenue.
However, with councillors, cutting across party lines, opposing the hike, the council ultimately reduced the hike to 15 per cent for residential, non-residential and commercial buildings. But it allowed a 25 per cent hike for open sites.
But what is proving to be detrimental to residents is the approval given by the municipal council in the same meeting, for implementing the property tax revision of 2012-13 with retrospective effect (i.e., from 2011-12) and that of the revision in 2009-10 with retrospective effect from 2008-09. The municipal commissioner’s note on the proposal, it was contended that the advancement of the implementation was necessary for sorting out the technical glitches in the calculation of property tax, during the implementation of the new software Aasti.
Now, with this approval, residents will have to pay the difference amount (because of the hike with retrospective effect) of the tax they paid during 2008-09 and 2011-12. What is even more disturbing is that residents will have to pay penalty for arrears for these periods.
45 per cent
This will ultimately result in residents paying roughly 45 per cent more property tax, said a corporation official who didn’t wish to identify himself.
“As per law, residents will have to pay penalty (interest) on arrears. But as of now we have not any official direction in the matter. There is no manual calculation now. We will come to know how much a resident has to pay only when the data is fed into the new software,” the official said. However, the official maintained that there was some relief for residents as, the property tax hike has been reduced to 15 per cent for 2014-15 instead of 25 per cent. “That means residents will have to pay only 15 per cent more for three years, instead of 25 per cent more,” the official said.
Hubballi-Dharwad Municipal Corporation has cleared a 15 p.c. hike in property tax
