Mangaluru City Corporation further revises property tax under self-assessment scheme

The Mangaluru City Corporation has once again revised the property tax under the Self-Assessment Scheme (SAS), following complaints from the people and opposition by all the council members on the property tax for 2023-24 revised by the previous MCC commissioner.

Mayor Jayanand Anchan said that the property tax has been revised to ensure that citizens were not burdened.

The mayor said that he gave approval for the agenda in anticipation of the council’s approval, on the revision of the property tax on March 20. The revised property tax has already been installed in the property tax software of the MCC on March 21.

The amount of those property owners, who have already paid advance property tax for the year 2023-24, will be adjusted when they pay the tax next year.

An SMS will be sent to the property owners informing the same. Already, 32,407 property owners have paid the property tax to the tune of Rs 17.25 crore for 2023-24, he added.

The property owners have time till April end to get a 5 per cent rebate on the payment of advance property tax.

Chief whip in the council Premananda Shetty said that as per an amendment made by the state government to Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act to tweak the property taxes in 2021, the property tax should be calculated based on the prevailing guidance value of the property.

Accordingly, the agenda on the proposed revision of tax as per the government direction was placed in the council on March 21, 2021. However, it was deferred.

Later, the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) in December 2022 had written a warning letter to the mayor in recommending the state government to dissolve the corporation for not revising the property tax under the SAS based on the current guidance value of properties.

In addition, the directorate had also issued a show-cause notice to the then commissioner of the corporation asking why disciplinary action should not be initiated against him for not revising the tax.

Accordingly, the then commissioner revised the property tax in January 2023 using a standard rate. As a result, in some cases, the property tax was hiked by 40 to 50 per cent.

Following a note given by the mayor to the MCC Commissioner K Channabasappa to revise the property tax without burdening the citizens, the commissioner submitted an agenda on the revision of the property tax for the approval of the mayor.

“The revision has been made by taking into consideration of the guidance value of each area and it is in the range of 0.2 per cent to 1.5 per cent of the taxable capital value of the building. A concession has been given up to 1,000 square feet area of land surrounding the houses. The tax for vacant land is calculated in the range of 0.2 to 0.5 per cent of the land value.”

In total, Rs 93 crore property tax has been collected by the MCC for the financial year 2022-23.