[ಕನ್ನಡ ಅನುವಾದ ಶೀಘ್ರದಲ್ಲೇ ಬರಲಿದೆ — Kannada translation coming soon]
If the Mysuru city is to be prevented from the ill effects of high volume personal vehicles, in place of public transport, the time is already arrived to act by KSRTC and the traffic police and corporation all put together. Property Tax: Need for citizen movement to collect the potential of Rs. 250 crores. Bhamy V. Shenoy Graph- Property Tax collected between 2000-01 to 2016-17 The most important task for any urban body like Mysore city corporation is to collect the maximum amount of property tax (PT) allowed by the Potential property tax revenue is more than Rs, 250 crores per year. Why have we failed to collect even 50%?
Karnataka Municipal Act. Without adequate funding, MCC cannot fulfill its civic responsibilities of providing clean water, keeping city garbage free, maintaining parks, ensuring safe roads, etc. As can be seen from the above graph, MCC has failed spectacularly when the actual taxes collected during the last five years between 2012-13 to 2016-17 are compared against the potential of at least Rs. 250 crores if not more. In 2017-18 budget, proposed target for PT was Rs. 175 crores and the actual amount collected was about Rs. 115 crores based on a new estimate provided at the time of the budget this year. For 2018-19 a more realistic target of Rs. 127 crores has been set. However during the budget deliberation no one questioned why such a low target has been set when the potential is more than Rs. 250 crores and target earlier was Rs. 175 crores. Property tax is a major revenue contributor for any city and it could be as high as 50% of total revenues. When the MCC budget revenue is Rs. 712 crores for 2018-19, property tax target for MCC should have been Rs. 356 crores. The current goal of Rs. 127 crores is less than 18%. This clearly shows the serious problem MCC faces. But the tragedy is that it has attracted no attention over the years though much has been written on all aspects of property tax system. 681216304060667588942500.75.150.225.300.2000-01 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2008-09 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17Pot’l
For examples issues raised regarding property tax are: need for digitization of tax records, on line tax computation and payment, tax payer friendly and knowledgeable MCC staff, clarification of byzantine tax rules, irrational way of assessing tax, failure to identify defaulters, and lack of formal system to detect wrong computation of taxes. Though it was clearly written that penalty should be twice the actual tax when a building violates bylaws, only this year MCC has started to impose it. Apartment owners are getting different interpretation of how they should pay for common area. Then there is the inequitable and irrational way of assessing tax. For example a house located say in very expensive one acre land has the same tax rate as a similar house with no vacant land around it. A house built in 2001 will pay less tax than a similar house say built 2018 since once tax rate is fixed, it can be altered only every three years and only by less than 30%. These are some of the irrational clauses written in the current act and there is an urgent need to rewrite the act. Just last month we had the annual “tamasha’ of MCC unveiling one more attempt to punish the defaulters by organizing, “Special Property Tax Collection Drive”. This year they want to go after top 100 defaulters in each Zone. But where will they get such information? Do they have property tax data to carry out such a task which should have been carried out many years back. Are they really serious? Mysore Grahakara Parishat has been promoting the application of computers for Mysore’s property tax system since 1989 with no success. MGP used to urge every new commissioner to computerize the property tax system. With the exception of very few commissioners, every one used to agree that it is a great idea and they would implement it. Still computerizing the property tax has remained a dream for Mysore despite having world class software companies. If MCC approaches Infosys, they may offer to develop the system free of cost as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility. Way back in 2008, when Manivannan was MCC commissioner, there was online calculator available to compute taxes. Later during the time of former MCC commissioner Raiker (in 2010) we were promised that “with a click of the mouse we could pay taxes from any part of the world”. With the help of Geographical Information System, MCC identified 2.04 lakh properties and
digitize them. Before that MCC had previous records on only 1.4 lakhs and Long line of tax payers. This photo was taken in 2014 and this line has only lengthened over the years. of that a significant number were not paying taxes. All these efforts did not result in any improvement and our property tax collection system is exactly it was when we were collecting Rs.6 crores way back in 2000-01. How fair it is to those who have been paying their share of the taxes waiting for hours (see photo) in line when there are thousands who go unpunished? It is high time, Mysoreans start a movement “Digitization of Property Tax System” to put pressure on elected leaders and MCC bureaucrats to streamline the entire property tax system inherited from the British Raj. When residents in Bengaluru can pay their taxes online why can’t we? MCC should organize a high level committee consisting of competent corporators, revenue officers with expertise and leading auditors of the city to look into the archaic tax system to computerize to collect tax online and
also to have a world class management system to identify defaulters to take timely action. The committee should also make sure that defaulters are unable to get stay order from our judicial system to pay their fair share by approaching the courts. Unless there is a citizen movement to protest against the totally failed property tax system, MCC will not be able to provide proper civic amenities. If we want to have an online payment system starting from 2019, time to develop a digitized tax system is NOW. (Aug 15, 2018)