Mayor K. Chandrika has said that the Corporation will initiate revenue recovery proceedings against the Legislative Assembly complex in the city if the building tax arrears for the complex are not remitted within the stipulated time.
Ms. Chadrika has said that the State government owed the Corporation around Rs.13 crore as building tax since the commissioning of the complex in 1998.
“The State government, which is delaying the sanction for the Corporation's budget proposals, should at least release the money that is due to the local body in terms of building tax arrears. Most government buildings in the city have not been assessed for building tax so far. The Niyamasabha complex was also not assessed until we took up the case,” Ms. Chandrika told The Hindu .
She said the Assembly complex officials had contested the building assessment measures initiated by the Corporation officials, following which the building was re-assessed. However, now they are raising contentions again regarding the re-assessment.
“Initially when we sent a direction for building assessment, they did not respond. So the Corporation took the initiative and assessed the Assembly complex. When they disagreed on the assessment results, we conducted a re-assessment. They cannot keep on making contentions, the Corporation should get the tax that is due and I have communicated this to the honourable Speaker as well,” Ms. Chandrika said.
She said that if the payment of tax arrears of the Assembly complex was inordinately delayed, the Corporation would send a final demand notice following which the revenue recovery proceedings would be initiated after 15 days.
Corporation Tax Appeal standing committee chairman P. Shyamkumar said the Corporation was willing to look into the contentions made by Niyamasabha complex if an initial amount was remitted by them. “From last what I heard on the case, the Speaker has agreed in theory to make an initial payment of Rs.50 lakh,” he said.
Appeal committee
Mr. Shyamkumar said the Corporation was willing to make reasonable concessions for the tax arrear amount if the Legislative Assembly officials approached the tax appeal committee.
“We had done this in the case of some buildings in Technopark when they made an appeal before the committee. The assessment for buildings on its campus is progressing. We have already received Rs.50 lakh from the facility as property tax,” Mr. Shyamkumar said.
He said notice had been given to all government buildings in the city regarding payment of property tax.
Special squad
As part of recovering tax arrears from government and private buildings, the local body has constituted a special squad to conduct building assessment. Around 279 buildings have been assessed by the squad in the past one year. This move is part of the Corporation's initiatives to improve its revenue collection.
“The Corporation, which is facing a severe financial crisis, has not had a positive approach from this government regarding release of funds. Apart from the delay in receiving the approval for our budget projects, the government is yet to release the Rs.23-crore pension fund. We have to give around Rs.40 crore to contractors alone. Even the salary for our staff has to be met from Corporation's own fund. In this scenario, the Corporation is pressed to improve its revenue collection system through such measures,” Ms. Chandrika said.
