BBMP plans door-to-door visits to educate property taxpayers

For the next two weeks, the BBMP revenue officers and tax inspectors will visit big apartment complexes and major buildings in order to guide the property owners on how to pay the property tax.

The move by the civic body comes in the wake of the confusion pertaining to filing property tax online, which has resulted in poor tax collection. Officers at the ward and zonal level will guide the property owners. These officers will be working on holidays as well to maximise their reach.

Speaking to reporters, BBMP Commissioner G Kumar Naik said the officers will show the property owners sample form and sample tax paid receipts in order to clear confusion in tax payment.

Apart from 175 branches of the Canara Bank, taxes will be collected at 110 branches of the ICICI Bank, 80 branches of Axis Bank and 25 branches of the Yes Bank. The Palike has set up 216 help centres across the City to assist the taxpayers. Although the tax collection could not exceed Rs 35.5 crore, the BBMP officials were quite enthusiastic about the 1.37 lakh visits to the Palike’s property tax payment portal.

When asked about the JD(S) MLA K Gopalaiah’s displeasure over the hike in property taxes, BBMP commissioner said the hike will not be withdrawn. BBMP Special Commissioner Kumar Pushkar said, “We have not revised the property tax in the last 16 years due to various reasons. Time was ripe enough to increase the tax.”