Hyderabad: Civic bodies flouting all norms in collecting property tax

Hyderabad: The newly created municipalities and municipal corporations surrounding the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) limits are flouting the Telangana Municipal Act in the collection of property taxes. This is resulting in owners of residential buildings burning a big hole in their pockets as they are asked to pay taxes which are on par if not more than commercial buildings.

The state government which wanted to develop the gram panchayats around GHMC created six municipal corporations - Peerzadaguda, Boduppal, Jawaharnagar, Bandlaguda, Badangpet and Nizampet.

The government also promoted panchayats – Jilleguda, Meerpet, Dammaiguda, Dundigal, Ghatkesar, Gundlapochampally, Kompally, Medchal, Nagaram, Jalpally, Kothur, Manikonda, Pedda Amberpet, Shamshabad, Shankarpalle, Tukkuguda, Thurkayamjal and Ameenpur as municipalities.

In many cases, the municipal officials admitted that the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) were yet to take up the assessment and finalise the tax amount as per the new Municipal Act 2019 which came into force two years ago. The Act has clearly said that the property tax on buildings shall be levied based on the prescribed parameters. The municipal authorities should take up the capital value of the building first. Every building shall be assessed together with its site and other adjacent premises occupied as an appurtenance thereto. It says that "It is mandatory for the Revenue officials of the municipalities to prepare and submit monthly list of buildings to the Municipal Commissioner who shall assess all the new and old properties with additional construction and bring them into tax record immediately. The municipality shall also submit the statement of the monthly list to the Regional Director".

Practically, no major drive to assess the property value was taken up in the newly constituted ULBs which came into existence two years ago. Top municipal officials on a condition of anonymity told The Hans India that the authorities were collecting the property tax by increasing the previous tax collected in the panchayats without following any specific rules mentioned in the Municipal Act. Huge discrepancies have been noticed in the finalization of the property taxes for the residential buildings. In some cases, the tax amount for residential structure was almost equal to the commercial buildings. Though the owners brought the grievances on hefty property tax to the notice of municipal authorities, the officials were not responding and instead threatened them to pay fine for the delay in the payment of tax. A resident of the Manikonda municipality said that he had to pay Rs 30,161 as property tax which was almost equal to the commercial buildings on the main roads.

State Deputy Director TSVN Thrilleshwar Rao, who is looking after property taxes, said, "Multiple issues are there in the tax collecting process in the new municipalities. Most of them did not bifurcate commercial and residential buildings yet. As a result, both the residential property owners and commercial building owners are paying almost similar taxes. Depending on the budget demand from each municipality, property tax is being levied these days."