Even though the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has decided to scrap “super commercial” category and bring marriage choultries, cinemas and hotels under a new commercial category with a revised property tax structure, their owners are far from satisfied.
The MCC’s decision to fix a rate of tax higher than the commercial properties for these buildings by bracketing them as “super commercial” in 2007 had long been resented by owners, who had made a series of representations to the authorities.
During the last meeting of the MCC council, a decision was taken to scrap the “super commercial” category, but bring the marriage choultries, theatres and hotels under a new’ commercial B’ category distinct from the regular ‘commercial A’ category.
“Super commercial category carried a high tax burden. So, we have renamed them as commercial B”, said MCC Commissioner Shilpa Nag. While the “factor of multiplication” for other commercial properties was 1.3 per cent, it used to be 2.291 per cent for “super commercial”.
The MCC’s Standing Committee will inspect the properties and categorise marriage choultries, cinemas and hotels “beyond a certain geographic dimension” as commercial B properties, she said.
However, owners of such properties pointed out that the “factor of multiplication” fixed by the MCC for collecting property tax was 1.7 per cent, which is still higher than the rest of the commercial properties.
President of Mysuru Marriage Choultry Owners’ Association K R Sathyanarayan described the changes as an “eye-wash”. The marginal relief extended by the MCC will be inadequate as the basis for calculation of the tax will be the guidance value of 2018-19 against the earlier 2007-08 guidance value.
As guidance value trebled between 2007-08 and 2008-19, the relief makes no difference, he argued.
A meeting of owners of marriage choultries, cinemas and hotels was held in Mysuru on Monday to chalk out their next course of action. “We are likely to move the court”, Mr. Sathyanarayana said.
Mysuru Hotel Owners Association Narayana Gowda said the changes had given only partial relief to the hoteliers.
Rajaram from Mysuru Theatre Owners’ Association said the changes effected by the MCC will not help. He also argued that the property tax in Mysuru is calculated on the basis of the property’s capital value, which was at variance with the practice of calculating the same on the basis of units or rental value of the property like in Bengaluru.
In view of the ‘faulty’ calculation, a cinema spread across two-and-a-half acres in Majestic area of Bengaluru pays only ₹3.5 lakh as annual tax while a cinema on Chamaraja Double Road here spread across 18,000 sq. ft will have to cough up an annual tax of ₹4.4 lakh. “The property tax in Mysuru is 300 per cent higher than Bengaluru”, he lamented.
