BBMP to penalise taxpayers giving wrong information

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike is contemplating a penalty of twice the property tax on those giving false information to evade tax.

BBMP's taxation and finance committee chairperson M Shivaraju told reporters on Saturday that the property owners have been given the liberty to assess their property and pay taxes accordingly under the Self Assessment Scheme (SAS). However, some people are misusing it by giving false information. He said in the event of doubt, the Palike will act according to the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, measure the area and impose hefty penalty.

Shivaraju added that Rs 231.66 crore is expected from top 10 firms, whom the civic agency believes, have given wrong information about the size of their properties. He said they will be served notices.

These firms are Orion Mall, Salarpuria, Bagamane Tech Park, Leela Palace, Nitte Meenakshi, Federal Mogul, Golden Hill Square, Accenture, Chaithanya Properties and GE India. According to their declaration, their properties are spread in 1.09 crore sqft which is almost 45.11 crore sqft less than the actual extent, said Shivaraju. He added that the services of a survey company Survey Station was taken to measure the actual size of the buildings. As a pilot project, the 10 firms were measured. The survey showed these firms hid information from the BBMP.

He said, “We will recover Rs 231.66 crore from these firms, which includes taxation amount, interest and penalty.”

Shivaraju said the BBMP has so far collected Rs 1,037.92 crore as property tax from 8.41 lakh property owners. This was achieved after the BBMP fixed the software glitch and made the online tax collection user-friendly.