COVID-19 restrictions and the Kochi Corporation’s failure to provide online tax payment facilities have jeopardised tax collection.
The revision of property tax should have raked in an additional ₹45 crore for the corporation as per figures with the civic body's revenue department. After several years of delay, the corporation began issuing revised property tax notices late last year. While the revision applies to over 50,000 tax payers, only around 25,700 revised notices had been issued when COVID-19 restrictions were enforced. The absence of an online system to issue demand notices and collect taxes and fines meant that the 46 bill collectors would have to cover all 74 divisions of the corporation to ensure payments, and this came to a halt with the pandemic situation.
Lack of a functioning e-governance system that could improve the speed of governance has been causing much of the trouble. “Around 300 to 400 people visit the office every day, making something like social distancing difficult. Besides, bill collectors are stuck here. They are not able to visit houses and make collections,” said Rahul R., Secretary, Kochi Corporation.
While property tax worth an average of ₹70 lakh fell into the corporation’s coffers daily towards the end of the 2018-19 financial year, the amount dipped in March this year. Compared with over ₹23 crore collected in March last year, the corporation collected only ₹13.85 crore in the same month this year. In April, only a little over ₹1 crore could be collected, while in May, despite relaxations in restrictions on movement, ₹4.96 crore was collected. If all property tax revision notices had been handed out, the corporation’s demand for property tax would have been nearly ₹146 crore this year, including arrears, as against ₹99.7 crore last year. Despite the revised demand of ₹146 crore, the corporation collected only ₹121.47 crore as property tax up till April this year.
Against a profession tax demand of ₹44.08 crore, collection stood at ₹38.61 crore. Only ₹3.80 crore has been collected as rent for the corporation’s buildings, against a demand of ₹6.12 crore.
Only a little over ₹20 lakh as rent, and around ₹6 crore as profession tax, was collected in March and April, though the end of the 2019-20 financial year should have seen a spike in collection.
Deputy Mayor K. R. Premakumar said that the corporation was struggling to ensure better tax collection, considering the circumstances.
