MUMBAI: BMC, in the past one week, has attached around 17 luxury cars, including an Audi and a Mercedes, belonging to builders, landlords and businessmen to pressurize them into clear property tax dues. The defaulters include builder Samir Bhojwani whose sedans —Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Hyundai Creta — have been attached, besides an Audi of the Sai Group.
Some of the tax defaulters had cleared partial dues to secure release of their vehicles.
Civic officials stated the action was prompted by the fact that most defaulters were moving around in swish cars, but were not clearing their tax dues.
A BMC official said, “There is no provision to add interest on delayed payment or impose penalty, so many builders and businessmen deliberately avoid paying property tax till the last moment. We are discussing a policy to penalize such defaulters by imposing fines and levying interest on dues.”
BMC’s property tax collection target for the current financial year is Rs 5,400 crore. Till Thursday, it was woefully short at Rs3,700 crore.
Earlier this month, the BMC had decided to attach the property, land, buildings, household items and office furniture of defaulters. But they faced a challenge in safeguarding household items and furniture. They also faced legal problems in auctioning seized land and buildings, besides difficulty in finding buyers in the sluggish real estate market.
Hence, BMC officials decided to attach high-end cars of defaulters as it would be easy to auction them.
An official said, “It is easy to get a base rate for such vehicles from second-hand car dealers and it is also easy to find find customers. We have decided to keep such vehicles with us for a week. If a defaulter fails to clear dues during that period, we will auction the vehicle to recover the pending dues.”
Last month, the BMC had attached two helicopters of Mesco Airlines at Juhu airport over Rs 1.6 crore property tax dues. The civic body has already attached 3,179 properties of defaulters.
Some of the tax defaulters had cleared partial dues to secure release of their vehicles.
Civic officials stated the action was prompted by the fact that most defaulters were moving around in swish cars, but were not clearing their tax dues.
A BMC official said, “There is no provision to add interest on delayed payment or impose penalty, so many builders and businessmen deliberately avoid paying property tax till the last moment. We are discussing a policy to penalize such defaulters by imposing fines and levying interest on dues.”
BMC’s property tax collection target for the current financial year is Rs 5,400 crore. Till Thursday, it was woefully short at Rs3,700 crore.
Earlier this month, the BMC had decided to attach the property, land, buildings, household items and office furniture of defaulters. But they faced a challenge in safeguarding household items and furniture. They also faced legal problems in auctioning seized land and buildings, besides difficulty in finding buyers in the sluggish real estate market.
Hence, BMC officials decided to attach high-end cars of defaulters as it would be easy to auction them.
An official said, “It is easy to get a base rate for such vehicles from second-hand car dealers and it is also easy to find find customers. We have decided to keep such vehicles with us for a week. If a defaulter fails to clear dues during that period, we will auction the vehicle to recover the pending dues.”
Last month, the BMC had attached two helicopters of Mesco Airlines at Juhu airport over Rs 1.6 crore property tax dues. The civic body has already attached 3,179 properties of defaulters.
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