MillenniumPost
Bengal

Councillor urges people to clear property tax dues

Kolkata: In a bid to collect property tax arrears, a councillor sat with the residents of housing complexes in Ultadanga and urged them to clear the dues at the earliest.

Earlier, Mayor Firhad Hakim had requested all the councillors to take up the issues with property tax arrears, to augment the revenue of Kolkata Municipal Corporation. Hakim can waive the tax dues up to 50% and the penalty accrued on the dues up to 90%.

Santi Ranjan Kundu, Trinamool Congress councillor of ward 32 in Ultadanga, sat with the residents of housing complexes who have not paid KMC tax for quite some time. The civic body has decided to collect the arrears through negotiations.

Deputy Mayor Atin Ghosh, who is in charge of KMC's revenue collection, said drives would be taken up in big housing complexes where property dues have reached crores of rupees. The KMC officials led by Ghosh will meet the residents and urge them to pay property tax at the earliest. Ghosh said the tax dues would be over Rs 2,000 crore.

KMC will digitise the registers of the accounts department and in every ward, a list of big housing complexes will be prepared and special drives will be carried out to collect house tax arrears.

The civic authorities are seeking legal opinion on collection of tax arrears from properties where the owners could not be traced. KMC had sent notices but they were returned as the owners could not be found. Most of these buildings are occupied by tenants and sub-tenants who also do not pay monthly rent as they have also failed to trace the owners.

Meanwhile, in a bid to augment revenue collection, the civic authorities have decided to collect amusement tax from people who hire banquet halls, big ceremonial houses and gardens. Those who will hire such premises will have to pay amusement tax before commencement of the event being held there.

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