The BMC will present the budget for fiscal 2024-25 next week. However, they are yet to send corrected provisional property tax bills to the taxpayers, which contribute 24% of revenue to the BMC's kitty.
Bills sent after delay of nine months
The BMC issued security/ad-hoc bills, with a 20% hike in December 2023. Due to the legal complexities in BMC’s retrospective tax assessment, the bills were sent after a delay of nine months.
Former corporator Asif Zakaria raised the issue with municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal and alleged that by issuing such ad-hoc bills, the civic body is placing additional financial burden on the taxpayers.
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After that, Chahal clarified that there would be no hike in the property tax in the current fiscal year. The corrected bill will be sent to the taxpayers. Accordingly, the BMC has withdrawn all the bills which were sent with a 15-20% hike. The taxpayers who had auto-debit ECS with BMC were charged. “The new bills will now be generated with the last year's rate and the extra amount charged will be credited into accounts, and adjusted in future bills," said a civic official.
Delay affects revenue collection
Meanwhile, the delay in sending bills has affected the revenue collection of the BMC in the current financial year. Property tax is the second-highest revenue source for the municipal corporation. As per civic sources, the BMC has seen a decline in revenue collection in the last two years. The exemption of property tax for residential properties up to 500sqft resulted in a loss of Rs462 crore. Also, the revision in tax that was due in 2020-21 was deferred due to the pandemic and continued till 2023, which decreased revenue by Rs1,080 crore.
The BMC has collected around Rs700 crore of property tax in this financial year, while it was Rs3,550 crore during this period in fiscal 2022-2023. Sunil Dhamne, joint commissioner, said, “We shall work harder to achieve the target.”
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