The State Government’s recent move to revise Property Tax across the State has come in for criticism and those opposing it have asked for a reconsideration of the rate of revision.
A consumer organisation, Coimbatore Consumer Cause, has written to the Secretary, Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department, saying that the 2018 revision has led to property owners in Chennai pay far less than their counterparts outside the city.
The consumer body's Secretary K. Kathirmathiyon has pointed out in his letter that in 1998, when the Government revised the Property Tax, the rate of revision was uniform across the State. A decade later, when it revised the tax, it exempted Chennai from the revision.
Anomaly
Now in the latest revision, though the Government had revised the Property Tax for property owners across the State, the exemption given to property owners in Chennai alone had resulted in anomaly in that the base year for revision for Chennai remained 1998, but 2008 for others.
Assuming that ₹ 1,000 was the Property Tax for a half-year for a property owner in Chennai in 1998, the property owner would now be paying ₹ 1,500, as rate of increase is 50%.
For a property owner who had paid ₹ 1,000 a half-year in areas outside the State Capital in 1998, the 2008 revision had left him paying ₹ 1,250 a half-year at 25% increase and the 2018 revision would leave him paying ₹ 1,875 a half-year at 50% increase.
Likewise, an industry owner in Chennai who had paid ₹ 10,000 a half-year in 1998 would be paying ₹ 20,000 a half-year after the 2018 revision, as the rate of revision is 100%. But an industry owner who had paid ₹ 10,000 a half-year in 1998 would now be paying ₹ 40,000, as he had had his half-year tax doubled in 2008.
For owners of commercial establishments like wedding hall, hospital or shopping complex, the 2018 revision would result in they paying ₹ 50,000 a half-year, assuming that they had paid ₹ 10,000 a half-year in 1998, as the rate of revision was 150% in 2008 for those outside Chennai.
But owners of commercial establishments who paid ₹ 10,000 a half-year in Chennai in 1998 would now be paying only ₹ 20,000 as the Government had immunised them to the 2008 revision and included them only now in 2018 when the rate of revision was 100%.
But there was more to the anomaly than what had been stated above, Mr. Kathirmathiyon said and pointed out that the difference that people outside Chennai had paid for the last 10 years or 20 half-year period should also be factored in.
Owners of houses outside Chennai would have paid the 25% increase for 10 years – from 2008 to 2018 – and that worked out to ₹ 5,000, assuming that they had paid ₹ 1,000 in 1998.
A similar calculation showed that industry owners outside the State Capital would have paid ₹ 2 lakh in excess of their counterparts in Chennai and owners of commercial establishments ₹ 3 lakh more.
Therefore, the current revision was unjust and discriminatory to all the people outside Chennai, which, in fact, had seen more investments in infrastructure development compared to other cities and towns in the State, Mr. Kathirmathiyon said and suggested that the Government revise the rate of revision for houses to 20%, reduce the existing tax by 20% for other type of assessees (industrial and commercial) or exempt them from the revision – all for those outside Chennai.
He further said that the consumer body was not against the Property Tax revision per se, but only on the discrimination between property owners in Chennai and those outside.
In another petition, former Coimbatore Corporation Councillor M. Krishnasamy argued that demanding Property Tax for the last assessment year 2018-19 was unfair and wanted a freeze on the tax collection.
