The Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC) has offered a rebate of 5 percent for paying property tax by March 31. The civic body has also offered to give 2 percent additional benefits for using the online system to pay taxes.
While residents and villagers are opposing tax collection of the PMC, the civic body is trying hard to attract taxpayers. Even last year, the civic body had given a similar offer and collected around Rs 48 crores. So far, during this financial year, the civic body has already collected Rs 84.53 crores.
As per the officials from the corporation, the collection is less than 10 percent of the total estimated collection of property tax in the new civic body.
Last year, the civic body had given a rebate of upto 15 percent for paying the property tax till July 31 which includes 5 percent for paying property tax online.
This is the first time that the civic body is collecting property tax since its inception in 2016. Earlier, residents were paying property tax to gram panchayat and service tax to CIDCO.
As per the civic body’s record, there are around 73,997 property tax holders and the civic body had estimated to collect around Rs 1000 crores.
Many residents demanded that property tax should be collected when the proposal was passed in the general body. “The general body had passed a proposal of property tax collection on January 2019 with tax slabs. However, the civic body has sent a notice to citizens asking to pay property tax since the civic body came into existence,” said a resident from Kharghar. The civic body was formed in October 2016.
Leena Garad, a corporator from PMC raised the matter of dual tax collection and created awareness among residents. She opposed retrospective tax collection.
