Mumbai: In a bid to ease the financial burden of Mumbaikars, Congress corporator of H West ward, Asif Zakaria has written to Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal requesting waiver on periodic hike in property tax from 2020-2025.
As per the MMC Act amendment, the civic body fixes the property tax rate every five years, following which it increases a percentage of the taxes based on the capital value. The rates were last revised for the 2015-2020 period.
"I have written to the municipal commissioner, urging him to waive the increase in tax rates. As tax rates are revised after every five years, I have urged the BMC to stick with the existing rates," said Zakaria.
"The business sector has taken a hit amid the coronavirus pandemic. The financial cycle is at a standstill and increasing the tax rates will be an added burden on the shoulder of Mumbaikars," explained Zakaria.
The civic body has not issued any property tax bill since April, as staffers of almost every department were engaged in battling the pandemic. However now that things are swinging back to normalcy, anytime now, the civic body will begin issuing property tax bills.
Meanwhile, the BMC, which also happens to be the richest civic body in Asia, had said in its 2020-21 budget that it would conduct a drive to collect atleast 10 per cent of the outstanding Rs 15,000 crore property tax dues. However, the Covid-19 outbreak not only put paid to these plans but the civic body indicated, that the rate of taxes might go up.
"Now that decision-making procedures are on the verge of resumption, the tax waiver will come as a sigh of relief for Mumbaikars," said the corporator.
