There are more than 13.3 lakh property owners in the Chennai Corporation. From them, the corporation earns revenue of around more than Rs. 2,000 crore a year. This is the main source of revenue for the corporation. Earlier, property tax was assessed based on the property owner’s self-assessment and collected by the corporation.
After that, the corporation has been carrying out accurate property tax assessments using modern technologies. In this process, properties that were undervalued are being reassessed, and letters are being sent only to those property owners from the corporation. Meanwhile, the public is complaining that property tax has been increased by more than 10 times.
Regarding this, North Chennai Residents Welfare Associations Federation president T.K. Shanmugam said, “In North Chennai, the owner of a property had been paying Rs. 295 every half-year until now. Now the corporation has sent a letter increasing it to Rs. 3,255.
It has been stated that this should be paid starting from the second half of the previous financial year. Accordingly, how can a middle-class property owner pay such a large amount in the second half of the previous financial year, the first half of the current financial year, and again in October for the second half? “There is no transparency in this property tax hike,” he said.
Former Minister Ma. Subramanian had expressed criticism, saying that property tax has been increased by 100 to 300 percent in Chennai. Corporation Mayor R. Priya has also expressed dissatisfaction with this move.
In this situation, Municipal Commissioner G.S. Sameeran has announced that the accurate property tax assessment has been suspended. In a press release issued by him regarding this, he said: In Chennai, the corporation had been carrying out action to revise the tax assessment for some properties identified as having been under-assessed, referred to as Under Assessed.
Requests have been received from the public over the past few days urging a reconsideration of this tax reassessment. After carefully reviewing the concerns raised by the public regarding this revised assessment, the municipality has decided to immediately suspend the tax reassessment.
Accordingly, the tax amount will be changed back to the level that was in effect before it was reassessed. The press release stated that for those who have already paid the revised tax amount, that amount will be adjusted as advance tax for the next half-year periods.