14 defaulters owe BBMP Rs 400 crore

BENGALURU: For the cash-strapped BBMP, properties in the city are considered a gold mine. The Palike claimed that it has collected taxes from 69 percent of properties in the city this financial year. Not stopping at that, the civic body is also relying on the Total Station Survey to find out the extent of wrong declaration by property owners to evade tax.

A BBMP official said, “We carried out the Total Station Survey on 80 high-tech parks, high-rise buildings and malls. Through the preliminary comparison of the property tax paid with that of the survey results, we found that 14 properties have given wrong declaration of their property measurement to evade tax.”
He said that demand notices have been served on all the 14 properties. “The difference amount should be paid to the BBMP along with the penalty and interest for wrong declaration,” he said.

“It is shocking, as difference from these 14 properties alone stands at Rs 215 crore. The total amount along with the penalty and interest will easily cross Rs 400 crore,” he said. “We were waiting for the election of the chairman for the standing committee on taxation and finance for 2017-18. With the elections over and with Mr Mahadev, corporator of Marappana Palya, being chosen for the post, we are going to speed up the process of tax collection,” he said.

Compared to previous years, the tax collection has improved. “While the target for 2016-17 was Rs 2,300 crore, we managed Rs 1,463 crore. For 2017-18, we aimed for Rs 2,600 crore and managed to collect Rs 1,702 crore,” he said.