BBMP caps property tax hike

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Thursday restricted the hike in property tax to 20% for residential properties and 25% for commercial entities, fearing a showdown with the BJP.

Earlier, the 20-25% hike coupled with the revised taxation zones had resulted in 50-80% increase in property tax in the city. Now, irrespective of whatever calculations the BBMP’s property tax portal throws up, people will only pay an additional 20-25% over the amount they had paid last year.

Also, the BBMP has extended the early bird offer of 5% concession on property tax till end of May. Interestingly, the Palike has not withdrawn or altered the revised taxation zones.

In short, this is a temporary relief to taxpayers as after three years, the taxes will be collected as per the revised zone rates. In that case, the abrupt increase in property tax may be somewhere between 50% and 100% or even more than that.

The sudden U-turn has left nearly 2 lakh property owners, who have already paid their taxes, in a lurch, and in a majority of cases the amount paid could be more than 20%.
The BBMP has offered adjusting the excess amount to the next year.

‘BJP creating confusion’

While announcing the decision, Mayor B N Manjunath Reddy blamed the BJP for creating the confusion. Referring to the saffron outfit’s decision to stall the Council meeting on Friday and stage a demonstration on May 3, Reddy said: “As a taxation and finance committee chairperson in 2014, Dr M S Shiva Prasad of the BJP created this confusion.

He had proposed the hike in tax as well as revision of taxation zones. Now the BJP is pitting people against the hike. People never staged any protest against it. On the contrary, it is now the BJP which is raking up the issue.”

But the BBMP, which decided to restrict the tax hike, has not yet upgraded its software.
Palike Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad said: “As of now we have not done it, but we expect the new software to be ready by Monday.”