Meeting tax target a challenge for Prakasam civic staff

ONGOLE: With employees of seven urban local bodies (ULBs), including Ongole Municipal Corporation (OMC), busy with election duties, which will end with the counting of votes on Sunday, officials are apprehensive about reaching the tax target.  The civic employees have been engaged in election duties for over two weeks now and once the process is over on March 14, a little over two weeks will be left for the staff to intensify their drive to collect the balance amount.

Around Rs 63.58 crore is the total tax demand, while the target to collect taxes is worth Rs 58.29 crore from April, 2020 to March 31, 2021 in all seven ULBs.  All the seven ULBs collected Rs 37.06 crore till February-end and the remaining Rs 21.23 crore should be collected before the financial year-end. Meanwhile, the OMC officials have set a target of collecting Rs 32.09 crore in the form of taxes. In fact, the OMC has 58,394 tax assessments, while the tax demand is Rs 35.01 crore. This fiscal, the OMC has to collect Rs 32.09 crore. Till February-end, the OMC collected Rs 19.75 crore and the remaining Rs 12.34 crore should be collected by March-end.