Palike plans special cell for property tax from bigwigs

 The BBMP plans to set up a special cell to collect property tax from owners of high value properties. The Palike is also mulling over training reve­n­u­e officers (ROs) and assistant revenue officers (AROs) in communication skills to deal with big corporate houses. 

“There are certain practical problems in collecting property taxes from big commercial establishments. The ROs and the AROs are not trained to collect taxes from owners of such buildings,” said Dr Shivaprasad, chairperson of the BBMP Taxation and Finance Committee. He expressed concern over the poor tax collection in the newly added areas of BBMP, which have major commercial buildings, at a press conference on Saturday.

“We need to streamline tax collection in Bommanahalli, Mahadevapura, Rajarajeshwarinagar and Yelahanka zones. We have also decided to shunt out non-performing tax collectors,” said Shivaprasad.

Citing the case of Wipro, he said the IT major had declared that it has only 80,000 sq ft of area, whereas a reality check showed that its total property is spread over 2.5 lakh sq ft.He advocated powers to the Palike, as envisaged in the Karnataka Land Revenue (KLR) Act, enabling it to seize movable and immovable properties of tax defaulters. He said that two months ago, the BBMP council passed a resolution, seeking powers envisaged in the KLR Act and sent the proposal to the State government for approval.

Shivaprasad said, “Our tax revenue will increase to somewhere between Rs 4,000 crore and Rs 5,000 crore, if the government approves our proposal.” He said the government’s response is quite favourable and there is every likelihood of the proposal getting approved.