The Margao Municipal Council has been collecting House Tax from Margao and Fatorda on the basis of the outdated and prehistoric census of houses. The MMC presently relies on the census conducted in 1972 and has now begun an aggressive house tax collection drive. The team has successfully collected more than Rs 70 lakh from the 15 wards of house tax collection. Several cases of business set ups in houses without trade licences are found every day during collection. One of the officers also informed that they are constantly under pressure from higher ups in case of larger amount collection from influential persons. The MMC is also set to begin collection of outstanding commercial taxes from October.
Chief Officer, Yashwant Tawde drew a revised order of House Tax collection recently and according to the order, two squads of six assistants, four labourers and two supervisors have been working for the collection of house taxes from households which have exceeded default of over 10,000and 5,000 rupees. An officer at MMC said that there are more than 15 to 20% houses and flats in various buildings which are now unoccupied and is a hindrance to the collection.
“There are some defaulters who have crossed Rs 25,000 in defaulter fees. In such cases, the persons call up politicians and city lords and we finally get a call asking us why we went there,” said one of the recovery men.
However, the MMC has taken a legal path and will now go ahead with the proper legal procedure which no defaulter can circumvent. “We have begun drawing bills and failure of payments. Bills will attract a demand notice and further warrant attachment of property. “There is not much resistance from people as they are frightened of legal repercussions and pay the dues. We have also given the liberty to people to pay in two instalments,” noted Dilip Khanapurkar, an officer of the recovery section.
The MMC is set to begin the process of collection of Commercial Taxes from the month of October. The outstanding amount of commercial taxes and rents of MMC have crossed couple of crores in the past few years.
“Five to seven people in every area we herald are found having commercial establishments in their houses without trade licences. We have begun warning all the violators to get trade licences done,” asserted Khanapurkar. The team will begin sending demand notices from September to all the defaulters who have failed to pay.
