House tax collection target gets reduced
Lucknow- Due to shortage of revenue inspectors, Lucknow Nagar Nigam (LNN) has reduced the target of house tax to Rs 100 crore from Rs 120 crore.
The revenue inspectors had planned to collect house tax from all houses which comes under tax net. In Lucknow, around 5,62,000 properties come under tax net. According to authorities, so far, around 60-70 percent of these properties in Lucknow have been covered.
Sources of city municipal corporation claim that the revenue inspectors collected tax from only 10-15 percent of the properties in April 2011. This occurred despite of revision of house tax rates in April 2010.
The Municipal commissioner said that owing to shortage of manpower, the corporation could only collect tax from about 50-60 percent properties last year. Currently, the civic body has only six revenue inspectors as against a requirement of 84. Around six tax assessment officers and seven tax superintendents have been transferred from the corporation recently.
Like other municipal corporations, LNN is also applying strategies to collect house tax. The civic body has started issuing attachment notices to house tax defaulters. Last week, around 120 notices were sent to property owners who have been defaulting payment of house tax for many years.
The Commissioner was confident to achieve the set target by March end. He informed that the pending dues from areas like Gomtinagar, Aliganj, Mahanagar, Vikasnagar have been submitted. Since properties in old city are smaller and unplanned, inspectors are facing difficulty to recover tax from areas like Chowk etc.
Officials said that the total tax target comprises of 10 percent of previous years’ arrears, while the remaining includes the current assessment. They added that zonal inspectors of respective areas have collected around Rs 70 lakh in a single day from the defaulters.
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