TIRUNELVELI
The Corporation’s revenue that stood at ₹ 34.86 crore five years ago has moved up to reach ₹ 63.51 crore during the last fiscal (2017 – 2018), thanks to the intensive tax collection initiatives taken by the urban civic body.
As the 24-year-old Corporation has presented the surplus Budget for the current fiscal through a range of fiscal reforms, extra care is being taken to augment its revenue by collecting property, water and professional taxes and other income like collection of rent.
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After identifying the individuals and the firms having hefty tax arrears, notices were issued to the defaulters. When a hotel at Vannarpet was found to be having property tax arrears to the tune of ₹8 lakh even after the Corporation issued the warning notice, the officials went there recently with police backing to seal the hotel.
“Surprisingly, the hotel management cleared the entire tax arrears within a next few minutes by paying it in cash,” V. Narayanan Nair, City Engineer and Commissioner (In-Charge), told The Hindu .
Since the State Government has empowered the local bodies to collect the entertainment tax from the cinema halls since October 1, 2017, the Tirunelveli Corporation is all set to enjoy attractive revenue under this head. As per the State government’s notification, the local body will get 8% tax for every Tamil movie being screened in the cinema hall while this slab will be 15% for other Indian language cinemas. For screening English and other foreign language movies, the cinema halls will have to pay 20% entertainment tax to the local body.
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Since nine cinema halls with 4,435 seats are located within the Corporation’s jurisdiction, the theatre managements have been asked to pay the entertainment tax arrears since October 1, 2017 to Tirunelveli Corporation within next 10 days (before April 15, 2018). “If not, the tax evading cinema hall will be sealed and its reopening will be possible only after the tax arrears are cleared with penalty,” Dr. Nair noted.
The urban civic body is also on the verge of getting another attractive revenue in the form of property tax from the educational institutions (except government and aided) as these buildings are now being measured.
“We’ve started sending the demand notices to the managements of the schools and colleges from April 15 onwards asking the managements of schools and colleges to pay the property tax for the second half of last fiscal (2017 – 2018). Deadline for paying the property tax for educational institutions is May 31,” Dr. Nair said.