The property tax department of Panvel Municipal Corporation (PMC) will remain open on Sunday to collect property tax as the offers of a 75 % discount on penalty will end on July 31. The civic body has offered slabs for a rebate for property tax defaulters to clear their arrears.
In the second week of July, the PMC administration published an advertisement and appealed to citizens to pay their property tax and get a 75% rebate on the delayed payment charges. It has also warned a penalty for the delayed payment of property tax will be collected if not paid in time.
Despite PMC’s request, it received a lukewarm response from property tax holders and in the last two weeks, it collected around Rs 8 crores. The civic body is expecting to collect on Sunday. So far, in the current financial year, it has collected around Rs 53 crores.
According to officials from the Property Tax department, the officials from the property tax department will present at the civic headquarter and ward office to receive taxes from citizens.
In the advertisement, the civic body said that the Bombay High Court has not stayed on the collection of the property. Going further, the civic body claimed that property tax holders lost Rs 118 crores for not availing of the waiver of 15 percent earlier.
In June 2022, the Bombay High Court provided a major relief to residents living under the PMC by retraining the civic body from taking any coercive action against the property tax defaulters.
This is the first time that the civic body is collecting property tax since its inception in 2016. Earlier, residents were paying property tax to gram panchayats and service tax to CIDCO. A section of residents demanded that property tax should be collected from when the proposal was passed in the general body. However, the civic body has been collecting since it came into existence, which means 2016.
