The Coimbatore Corporation has asked officials in the revenue wing to pull up socks and work hard to achieve the tax collection targets. Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan said that at a review he held a few days ago, it came to light that the officials in the revenue wing had not met the target.
Sources said that the collection as of December 2014 had been less than the last year’s figure. The tax collectors had collected only 59 per cent tax.
To improve the target, the Commissioner said that he had asked officials to show a 10 per cent increase by the end of January 2015, another 12 per cent increase by February and 14 per cent increase by the end of the financial year on March 31.
The objective was to cross the 95 per cent collection mark by the financial year-end. The sources said that the collection had been largely poorer in added areas compared to the old city areas. This had to do with the tendency of the assessees to pay the tax for two half-years towards the end of the second half-year, which was March 31.
To overcome the problem the Corporation had asked the officials in the five zones to conduct campaigns to ask the public to come out and pay taxes. In sometime from now, the Corporation would also keep its tax collection counters open on Saturdays and Sundays to facilitate assessees pay tax with ease.
Dr. Vijayakarthikeyan said that the Corporation was also looking at adding net banking facility to the online tax payment system so as to provide choices. At present, assessees could pay tax only through their debit or credit card.
And, that had a higher service charge.
The civic body had received suggestion in this regard and was working on it. It would also soon provide facilities like consolidated tax paid statements.
