After e-khata success, tax tension for Bengaluru property owners

Residents in Bengaluru – who literally moved mountains to obtain the e-khata document – have started receiving notices from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for under-assessing their property tax. 

While the civic body is legally right in attempting to recover tax arrears, the action comes as a shock to residents as the BBMP had originally promoted e-khata as a solution to curb fraudulent property transactions. They also fear the notices will lead to harassment at the hands of revenue officers. 

“Your property self assessment scheme (SAS) ID shows a mismatch between the area declared for tax and the area furnished for e-khata. Accordingly, show cause notices have been generated,” reads the notice received by a property owner in Nagasandra. “If you fail to show cause within 15 days, re-assessment will be confirmed and the dues shall be paid. File objections, if any. A hearing opportunity will be provided.” 

So far, the civic body has served notices to as many as 26,000 property owners for the recovery of about Rs 60 crore. This translates to an average outstanding amount of about Rs 23,000 per property. These are among the first to be identified among the 5.5 lakh properties which have so far been issued the e-khata document. 

Property owners can, however, appeal against the notices in the online platform itself without visiting the BBMP offices. For this, the civic body has launched a new website (bbmpenyaya.karnataka.gov.in) to track the developments too.

How did the BBMP identify the under-assessment of the property tax? At the time of applying for e-khata, submission of registered or sale deed as well as Bescom connection number is a must among a set of other documents. As the size of the property is mentioned in the sale deed, the BBMP looked at its property tax receipt to identify the differences, if any. 

Among the properties that received notices are those that wrongly mentioned the size of the property or even left out the parking lot, which is also included in tax computation.

Subash Shetty, a resident of Dasarahalli, said most flat owners in his apartment received the notices either on email or phone, wondering whether it was genuine.

“We had conducted an e-khata mela recently. If the notices are a follow-up to this, people will stop trusting the BBMP. The civic body should go after the big fish instead of harassing the general public,” he said. 

Another resident said, in many cases, the mistakes are introduced by the BBMP but the citizens suffer. “When I visited the revenue office, around a dozen citizens like me came with a complaint that square feet was turned into square metres in the final e-khata,” he said, drawing parallel to the ongoing boycott of UPI transactions by traders that had offered convenience to the public.