The controversy over the escalation in property tax which came into vogue under Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) limits with effect from April 1, refuses to die as citizens and activists continue to question the methodology for effecting the hike.
Recently, a large group of citizens including the KPCC spokesperson M. Lakshman flayed the authorities for the manner in which the hike has been effected and threatened to file a PIL in the High Court questioning the escalation. On Sunday, activist Bhamy V. Shenoy, founding working president of Mysore Grahakara Parishat (MGP), questioned the rationale of the hike and described it as flawed at various levels. He computed the hike for different properties to find out that the increase is not 15% as claimed by MCC and mandated by the law. “In reality it is as much as 170% depending upon the vacant land around ones house,” said Dr. Shenoy.
Till date, the MCC has not come up with any explanation about how they misled the public by stating it will go up by mere 15% and that too during a pandemic year, he added. Based on the calculations, he pointed out that a property with no vacant land around the house has a hike of only 14% while another property with a huge vacant land around the house has seen the tax increase by 170%.
In the past, vacant land did not attract any tax. Thus a small house on a small plot had more or less the same tax liability as a small house on a large parcel of land. This was not fair and equitable since land is often far more valuable than the house, he said. The government is justified in levying a tax on vacant land, but they should have done it gradually and not at one go, he added.
He also pointed out that there was no double taxation in case of houses without a Completion Report and wondered whether it was a change of policy or a glitch in the software. The list of cess had also increased and to the existing health, library, urban transport, beggary and solid waste management cess, the authorities have added garden and cemetery cess, Dr. Shenoy added. Similarly, the discount of 5% for paying the tax in April was only on house tax without cess. Now a 5% discount is applicable to all the cess. But the authorities have failed to include garden and cemetery cess.
Dr. Shenoy, whose organisation fought for introduction of the Self Assessment System and strongly advocated the online payment system, said it is not clear on what basis depreciation rates for buildings have been fixed or how land and construction values have been arrived at in computation of the property tax.
Calling for a committee of experts to go into the issue of property tax and conceive a sound policy, he said the present exercise has raised more questions.