The Brihanmumbai Municipal corporation’s proposal to waive off four months of property tax of hotels where rooms taken over to quarantine high-risk contacts now faces stiff objection from the opposition in the civic body. Tax waiver should be granted to citizens owning houses below 500 sq feet instead of five-star hotels, corporators from the opposition parties have voiced.
Last year, the BMC had waived property tax of Rs 22 crore for 182 hotels and lodges from April to June 2020 during the first wave. This year in September the BMC had proposed to waive off nearly Rs 41.9 crore of property tax of 234 hotels for the period from February to May 2021, according to civic officials.
This prompted a BJP corporator from Vile Parle Abhijeet Samant to write a letter to the BMC chief slamming the Mumbai civic body's move to waive off property tax for the "Rich" five-star hotels. “Five-star hotels in Mumbai were supposed to avail their hotel rooms free of charge as Covid Care Centre 2 (CCC2) and they have charged rent for these rooms, therefore their property tax waiver should be revoked,” Samant wrote in his letter.
Samant added, "The hotels were promised property tax waivers only if they provided their rooms for free as quarantine centres for the international passengers coming to Mumbai airport."
However, the hotels did not adhere to the conditions laid by the BMC and charged the quarantined passengers. The hotels will now be receiving property tax waiver if it is not revoked by the BMC, Samant added.
Samant further said: “The property tax waiver for five-star hotels will cost Rs 80 crores to the BMC coffers. Not only this but this also, be unfair towards the citizens who have to pay their property taxes after losing their jobs and struggling through financial difficulties throughout the pandemic,” wrote Samant.
Meanwhile, the leader of opposition in the BMC and Congress corporator Ravi Raja also opposed the tax waiver. “I am totally against the property tax exemption/waiver for five-star hotels, we have already sent a proposal against this offering tax waivers to these hotels”
