Following the State Government’s announcement revising Property Tax by 50% for residential buildings and 100 % for commercial and industrial buildings sometime July last year, the Coimbatore Corporation has revised the rates.
Though there is no official announcement from the civic body, the Corporation’s website www.ccmc.gov.in shows the revised demand, which each assessee can access by keying in his or her tax assessment number.
The website also displays the arrears each assessee has to pay for the two half years of the 2018-19 financial year.
Corporation officials say that the Government Order 73 of the Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department, dated July 19, 2018, says that the revised Property Tax is effective from the start of the last financial year – April 1, 2018 and therefore the civic body’s Property Tax assessees will have to pay the arrears for two half years.
And, those who have paid the Property Tax for the first half year of the current fiscal will have to pay the arrears as well. The Corporation has about over 4.60 lakh residential assessments, 38,500 commercial and 8,900 industrial assessments, which together help it earn ₹ 157 crore a year. The revision is expected to help the Corporation earn at least ₹ 120 crore more to take the total Property Tax demand to over ₹ 270 crore a year.
The officials say the arrears will help the civic body get another ₹ 30 crore, a one-time measure.
The increase for the current financial year is expected to strengthen the finances of the Corporation, which has been struggling for around three years to take up development works from its General Fund and rely mostly on grants from the Central and State governments.
That the Central Government withheld the release from the Central Finance Commission grant because of the State Government’s delay in conducting local body election only added to the Corporation’s financial stress, the officials say and add that at one time the Corporation owned over ₹ 100 crore to contractors for having executed various works.
With the Corporation revising the Property Tax, the challenge before it is to collect the tax, revise water charges and also start collecting the waste collection fee.