Property tax collections at the city Corporation have witnessed a major jump in the past two months, with the civic body starting the process of cleaning up its online tax collection data and publishing the list of defaulters.
In the month of October tax collections crossed ₹6 crore. According to Corporation officials, it is one of the months during which tax collections are low at around ₹3 crore in most years.
The possible publication of names in the defaulters list seems to have driven many to clear all pending tax dues. The tax collection figures are showing a similar trend as per the figures till the middle of November. Seeing the response, the Corporation authorities are now planning to implement a system of publishing such lists of defaulters every month at the respective zonal office or main office.
“We had expected a decline in tax collection following all the controversies over tax collection recently, but the reverse seems to be happening. Usually, the spike in tax payments is witnessed during the end of the financial year in March. Those who pay tax punctually often do it at the beginning of the financial year in April. But, months like October are often lean months, with a drop in collections compared to the rest of the months. That trend has changed this time,” says a Corporation official.
The property tax collection issue came to the fore following a controversy over misappropriation of funds by some officials in zonal offices of the Corporation. The debates over this also revealed the issues concerning the Sanchaya software used for property tax collection. Some of the payments made offline as well as online were not getting reflected in the online system, as these were not being updated on the same day. The system has also been plagued with issues including database discrepancies. These technical issues are being corrected and the database cleaned up for each ward.
The Corporation has over the past week been publishing the list of tax defaulters in each ward. This was mainly done to identify those who have already paid their taxes, but the details of which were not captured in the online system. But the exercise has led to some of the long-time defaulters paying their taxes. On Monday, the civic body published the defaulters' lists for Kanjirampara, Vazhuthacaud, Pangode, Jagathy, PTP Nagar, Thirumala, Valiyavila, Mudavanmugal and Punnakkamugal wards. Similar lists have already been published for the Pattom, Medical College and Thiruvallam zones, consisting of several wards.
The lists for all the zones will be published before November 20. The adalats for sorting out the issues faced by those whose tax payments have not been recorded will be held from November 22. The lists are available in the Corporation's website, the Sanchaya website and at the zonal office. Those who have objections to the list can submit the same in an application form, available at the zonal offices, main office and the Corporation website, within 15 days.
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