No. of views : (3374)
Severe cash crunch - Intensification of the property tax collection done by GCC
Posted on: 21/Sep/2020 9:19:00 AM
Soon, the tax collectors would be knocking the doors of the houses in Chennai city.
The lockdown in Chennai has hit the income of GCC badly. The GCC has been facing severe cash crunch now. At this point of time, GCC has taken an important decision of intensifying property tax collections.
To collect tax from the property owners, the tax collectors have been given instructions by the senior officials. The tax collectors would be visiting 25 houses every day in Chennai.
A meeting took place at the popular Ripon Buildings recently and in the meeting there were some discussions regarding the collection of property tax from the owners and instructions were issued. This was pointed out by some sources.
It has been revealed by the source that due to Covid-19 prevention works, the collection of property tax was suspended. The GCC has appealed to the property owners to pay their taxes online. It mentioned that now the tax collectors have been asked to visit the houses to collect current taxes and each tax collector must visit 25 houses every day. It is common knowledge that about 3 months ago the GCC resumed collecting taxes from the defaulters who had huge arrears to the civic body.
It was highlighted by an official that tax collectors must be friendly while asking for the tax amount from the property owners. Fact is that in the lockdown period the tax collectors have been asked to go easy on the struggling property owners.
It is important to mention that the GCC would not collect property taxes from those owners who have paid their taxes under the revised rates during 2019-20. There has been substantial increase in the tax rate due to the revision and as a result there was a public outcry.
This had prompted the TN government to withhold the tax rate hike. Many owners have paid the revised rate last year and GCC would adjust the excess payment against current tax demand.
Information collected is in the 2019-20 financial year, GCC had collected an amount of Rs 928 crores as property tax. This is Rs 74 crores less than what GCC collected in 2018-19.
