Chennai: Municipal Commissioner G.S. Sameeran has announced that the accurate property tax assessment is being put on hold due to public opposition.
There are more than 13.3 lakh property owners in the Chennai Corporation. The corporation receives annual revenue of over Rs. 2,000 crore from them. This is the main source of revenue for the corporation.
Previously, property tax was assessed based on the property owner’s self-assessment and collected by the municipality. After that, the municipality has been carrying out accurate property tax assessments using modern technologies. In this process, properties that have been undervalued are re-assessed, and letters are sent only to those property owners by the municipality.
Meanwhile, the public has been complaining that property tax has been increased by more than 10 times. Former minister Ma. Subramanian had criticized the increase, saying that property tax in Chennai had been raised by 100 to 300 percent. Corporation Mayor R. Priya has also expressed dissatisfaction with this move.
In this situation, Municipal Commissioner G.S. Sameeran announced last night that the accurate property tax assessment has been suspended. In a press release issued in this regard, he said: In Chennai, the corporation had been taking action to revise the tax assessments of some properties that were found to have been under-assessed.
Requests have been received from the public over the past few days, urging a reconsideration of this tax revision. After carefully reviewing the public’s demands regarding this revised assessment, the municipality has decided to immediately suspend the tax revision.
Accordingly, the tax amount will be changed back to the level that was in effect before the revision. For those who have already paid the revised tax amount, that amount will be adjusted as advance tax for the next half-year periods. This was stated in the press release.