In a crackdown on constructing homeowners under-assessing their properties and paying much less tax to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the civic physique has determined to quickly serve notices to round 2.5-3 lakh properties.
The notices will come together with fines for concealing the true extent of the built-up space. In response to Munish Moudgil, Particular Commissioner (Income), the BBMP used drones to confirm the extent of property declared by the proprietor underneath the self-assessment scheme and located that many had under-declared. “Primarily based on this, we’ll challenge notices to property homeowners and ask them to pay the tax dues,” he mentioned.
In response to sources, flaws have been detected in virtually a sixth of the 20 lakh properties self-assessed by their homeowners. As an example, underneath the Self-Evaluation Scheme (SAS), a constructing with 5 flooring had declared it as having solely three flooring. This was flagged throughout the drone survey carried out by BBMP within the metropolis limits.
Within the notices, the BBMP will direct the property homeowners to pay tax for the entire extent of the constructing, other than levying penalties for a similar. The civic company may additionally go for a one-time settlement (OTS) scheme to clear the dues of those property homeowners, because it did with the property tax defaulters final 12 months, sources added.
The SAS, launched in 2008, has been marred by a number of points. In 2022, erstwhile BBMP – now Larger Bengaluru Authority (GBA) – was flooded with complaints after 1000’s of property homeowners have been served notices on account of flawed zonal classifications within the SAS portal.
Final 12 months, BBMP launched the OTS scheme for property tax defaulters. Round 3.81 lakh property homeowners have been discovered to have defaulted on their taxes and have been supplied an opportunity to pay by waiving compound curiosity on arrears and decreasing penalties by 50 per cent.
The crackdown on under-assessment of properties is anticipated to generate extra income for BBMP, which has a income goal of round Rs 5,700 crore for the 2025-26 fiscal.