Taxmen face fine for delayed property checks

With a number of complaints being received over the deliberate delay in assessing tax of commercial and residential properties in the twin-city, Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) chief Dr Naresh Gite in order to maintain transparency and speedy approvals has finally cracked the whip on officials concerned, asking them to improve their efficiency or face action in the form of monetary fines.

As per directives issued by the civic chief, the tax department will have to ensure that proposals received for property tax assessments are cleared within 21 days, failing which the concerned tax personnel would be required to pay a penalty of Rs.100 per day.

The time for providing the service would be counted from the time of receiving and acknowledging the application from the applicant.

Moreover, the on-field tax personnel will have to keep a tab on non-assessed properties failing which they too will meet a similar fate.

Averaging Rs 192 crore as the annual revenue generation, out of a total of 3.05 lakh assessed properties, 2.53 lakh are residential and 52,487 commercial properties in the twin-city.

However, thanks to the serious irregularities, the MBMC is incurring multicrore losses every year due to the failure in timely tax evaluation of new properties and re-assessment of existing ones.

Thanks to the rampant corruption prevailing in the tax department, hundreds of proposals have been kept pending for a prolonged period, sources said.