The GHMC’s proposed property tax hike, is likely to burden 3.22 lakh property owners in the city, who are presently paying their annual property tax, which is less than Rs.500. With effect of the proposed hike in property tax, these property owners will have to pay 500% more tax.
Among the 3.22 lakh property owners, 90,000 of these owners are paying less than Rs 100 a year, because these owners 10 years ago had fixed the property tax by themselves, under the self-assessment scheme of the government and these properties are highly under-assessed.
The self-assessment scheme in early 2000, was offered by the MCH (now GHMC), so that property owners who had never paid their property tax, will come forward and pay their tax. At that time, whatever might have been the market rate, these property owners had the freedom to fix the tax and the government accepted it and the property tax was fixed.
A survey conducted by the GHMC has disclosed that, majority of these 3.22 lakh property owners have built two to three floors, on their buildings and are still paying the fixed tax, under the self-assessment scheme.
The survey was done on 20 per cent randomly selected properties in each area and the tax rates were based on that. Buildings are divided into three categories – A, B and C. Under category ‘A’ come buildings located on the main roads, category ‘B’ buildings located in colonies in interior roads and under category ‘C’ come slums.
Buildings that fall under category ‘A’, the tax rates are high and buildings that come under category ‘C’ the tax rates are low. For category ‘A’ buildings, the tax hike is up to Rs 3.50 per sq ft, category ‘B’ it is between Rs 1.50 to Rs 2.80, and for slums it is from 90 paise to Rs 1.50 per sq ft, earlier it was 40 paise per sq ft.