‘Hold ward camps to help fill up self assessment forms’

Kolkata: In the wake of a revenue crunch, Mayor Firhad Hakim has asked all the councillors of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) to hold camps in their wards to help and encourage people in filling up Self Assessment Forms (SAF) under Unit Area Assessment method of property tax evaluation.

KMC councillor Tapan Dasgupta recently drew the attention of the Mayor where he said that the self assessment form system was started from April 1, 2017 when campas used to be held for making people aware of it and assisting them in helping to fill up the forms. He pointed out that several citizens haven’t filled up these forms and due to which the KMC is not able to collect the amount of property tax that it ought to collect. He suggested that such camps be held again to encourage and assist the taxpayers.

The Mayor admitted that the civic body is not getting the amount of tax that should be coming to its treasury. He told the councillors to start arranging such camps and that the civic body will extend all help required to assist taxpayers in filling up these self assessment forms. He suggested that many taxpayers are yet not aware of the new system of property tax or have not been able to understand it fully.

Last month, KMC decided to empower its assistant managers of its Tax Collection department to also carry out inspection works to ensure zero loss in revenue collection. The civic body cleared a proposal where it empowered the assistant managers of the Assessment Collection department with the power of inspection in addition to their existing responsibilities. The inspection work under the Assessment Collection department was generally carried out by inspectors of the department.

Earlier this year, KMC was able to reduce the burden on taxpayers relating to generation of property tax bills after revaluation.

There used to be a tendency to keep the work of revaluation pending for a long time which resulted in excessive burden on the assessee. Now, an amendment has been made making general revaluation of property within six years from the effective quarter and intermediate assessment, mandatory.