Chandigarh civic body earns Rs 36.06 crore as property tax

CHANDIGARH: As the three month rebate period to pay property tax for commercial and residential properties came to an end on Wednesday, the tax branch of Chandigarh Municipal Corporation has received Rs 36.06 crore as tax.

Out of around 1.20 lakh tax payers from both commercial and residential properties, around 80,000 tax payers paid their property tax amount to the civic body authority during the three month rebate period from April to June.

Since the civic body authority has set a target of Rs 55 crore for the current financial year (2021-2022), it will now start issuing notices to the remaining around 40,000 tax payers, who did not come forward to pay property tax during the three-month rebate period. Moreover, defaulters will have to pay 25% penalty and 12% interest on their tax amount, failing which strict action will be taken against them. This can go upto sealing properties in case of commercial properties and disconnection of water supply in case of residential properties.

“We have received a good amount of money. Apart from private properties and government establishments, those who fall in the tax ambit also paid tax without delay. The results are quite encouraging for us as over half of the taxpayers turned up to pay their tax during the rebate period. We will start issuing notices to defaulting tax payers from next week. If they remain reluctant, strict action will be taken as per laid down norms,” said a senior MC officer.

Since the civic body authority received orders from the UT local bodies department last year to waive commercial property tax from 13 villages transferred to the MC from Chandigarh administration in 2019, no notices will be sent to them till further orders. With this, the authority has lost around Rs 76.11 lakh during this financial year.

According to records of the civic body authority, there are around 1.10 lakh property tax payers in the city. Out of these, around 85,000 are residential properties, while the rest fall in the commercial category.