The MMC does need to collect massive arrears of house tax but it has a problem. It doesn’t quite know who it needs to collect it from. Archaic records, no data updation and the lack of rudimentary details like mobile numbers and mail IDs of house owners, has made the hunt for defaulters like a needle in a haystack. A haystack that keeps growing with the increase in population and houses.
A number of homes, bungalows, flats, hutments and apartments have defaulted house tax payments for even two decades.
“I live in Dubai and I believe the MMC puts notices at my door but these get dusty over time and are fished out by miscreants on many occasions and I don’t really receive the notices and hence the house tax is not paid. Sometimes the MMC tax department itself is unable to retrieve info on my house tax payments and then it’s time to go back from my trip and the house tax stays in arrears. The MMC needs to streamline this system better,” explains Christopher Dias, who lives in Borda but spends 20 months in every two years overseas working in the Gulf.
Dr Babita Prabhudessai, Margao Municipality Chairperson, explains to Herald that when she looked through the records she found out that the last time a database of homes was created in Margao was way back in 2009 and lots has changed in the Municipality especially since the Municipality covers wider area and is of 25 wards compared to the previous 20 wards.
“I have been studying the municipality rules but because of the code of conduct not much has been done. The plan is to use our garbage collection foot soldiers to serve notices, distribute forms to residents, get all their data, put it onto a system and follow a method to collect the taxes and arrears but all this is not possible until data is sort,” explains Dr Prabhudesai.
The Chairperson agrees that the online payment portal with HDFC and Kotak Bank has not solved the problem of increasing house tax collection revenues since the message has not gone out and people are unaware of their dues to be paid. She also points out that many hutment and smaller homes are not registered with the municipality and hence don’t pay taxes and that in these situations a temporary house number needs to be issued to them and house tax should be collected.
The problem is that there is no alternate address to serve the notices or for that matter the MMC has no data of phone numbers and email addresses to serve notices and send reminders of payment of house tax.
“In many places, a large piece of land has buildings and multiple apartments but the land is still in the name of the land owner, forget builder. Hence the tax is shown as arrears since the flat owners have not been receiving tax payment notices. Sometimes people are paying taxes for their flats but are still defaulters because their taxes are accrued in the name of the builder or property owner, hence data collection needs to be done,” stated former MMC Chairperson Savio Coutinho.
While Arthur Silva, former two-time chairperson states that the MMC staff is incompetent and hence the entire activity should be outsourced with incentives to whoever is successful in collection.
“I feel it’s unfair to collect taxes from people who have invested in a second home but don’t live there; similarly it is unjust that people live in Margao, avail of municipal facilities but live in homes that are illegal and also don’t pay taxes,” explains Arthur.
The common solution that people point out to Herald is a comprehensive database of all the homes in an area, verification of the residents, furnishing of proper addresses, an alternate address, mobile number and e-mail addresses and then continuous reminders through SMS and emails with an online payment option followed by a quick penalty for anybody who defaults taxes.
“If telephone bills, communication to voters by the Election Commission, electricity bills do not face a hurdle then why should the municipality face it in collection of taxes is a question that needs to be asked,” stated Prithesh Naik from Chandrawaddo who also feels that a lot of commercial establishments running out of municipality registered homes should also be cracked down on.
The answer is simple. MMC needs to update its own records to at least know who its customers are.
