Mangaluru: If you are a property owner and yet to pay property tax, rush to Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) and do it immediately. If not, MCC would publish your name in the media and its official website as a defaulter.
MCC was not able to collect property tax from all and hence the collection was very less during the last year. Hence, it has decided to reveal the names of the defaulters now.
MCC has set a target of collecting Rs 52.06 Crore property tax from over 1.98 lakh property owners. However, it was able to achieve just 50 percent of the target with less than two months to go for the financial year to end.
In an effort to increase the tax collection, MCC is making announcements in the city that property owners and warning of exposing the defaulters in public. And surprisingly, the warnings seem to have had an impact on the citizens as the tax collection has picked up since the last one week.
The change in the system of property tax collection two years ago from the earlier system of issuing notice to the now Self Assessment System (SAS) is said to be one of the major reasons for low tax collection. Officials inform that people were accustomed to a system wherein they used to pay property tax after they received notice from the corporation. Now, many of the taxpayers may not be aware of the new system.
Another reason for less tax collection is the acute shortage of staff in the revenue section of MCC. While the sanctioned strength of the revenue section is 63, it is functioning with a skeletal staff of 18. Due to this, MCC is unable to carry out the random check on SAS and impose penalty on citizens who are found misusing it.
