Corporation intensifies property tax collection in city

CHENNAI: Facing severe cashcrunch due to the lockdown that hit its income and pandemic control measures that drained the coffers, the Greater Chennai Corporation has decided to intensify the property tax collection. Senior officials have instructed tax collectors to visit 25 houses every day to collect tax from the property owners.

According to an official source, the instruction was given during a meeting held at Ripon Building recently. "Due to the COVID-19 prevention works, property tax collection has been suspended.

The Corporation had appealed the property owners to pay their taxes online. Now, we have been asked to visit houses to collect the current taxes. Each tax collector should visit 25 properties every day," the source added.

About three months ago, the civic body had resumed collecting taxes from the defaulters who have huge arrears to the civic body.

The official added that the tax collectors should use a friendly approach while asking for taxes. "Due to the lockdown and its economic impact, we have been asked to go easy on the property owners who are struggling," the source said.

However, the civic body would not collect property tax from the property owners who had paid their taxes under the revised rates during 2019-2020. The revision had led to a substantial jump in the tax rate, which led to public outcry that prompted the State government to withhold the tax rate hike. For those who paid the revised rate last year, the civic body would adjust the excess payment against the current tax demand.

During the 2019-2020 financial year, the Corporation had collected Rs. 928 crore as property tax – Rs 74 crore less than what it managed to collect in 2018-2019. It had fixed an ambitious target to collect Rs. 1,200 crore in 2019-2020, but it was revised to Rs 1,000 crore after the rolling back of property tax hike and outbreak of COVID-19.

Forced to roll back the tax, which affected its revenue, the civic body has also decided to reassess property tax of over 1.50 lakh properties in the core city areas that comprises Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar, Anna Nagar, Teynampet, Kodambakkam and Adyar zones. Several buildings were identified as under-assessed during the GISbased drone survey and subsequent door-to-door survey.