Bengaluru: JW Marriott hotel lands in tax soup

BENGALURU: It was shocker for guests at the prestigious JW Marriott on Vittal Mallya Road as BBMP men moved in and seized furniture from the lobby of the hotel on Thursday, for defaulting on payment of property tax running into crores. The hotel authorities were let off the hook only after they fully paid the dues.

After announcing the list of top defaulters the BBMP has been cracking the whip and making them cough up the dues. Earlier following a high court directive, the Manyata Tech Park promoters had paid the property tax.

The palike then trained their guns on Marriott hotel. The BBMP revenue authorities had earlier passed a warrant letter demanding arrears of Rs 5.59 crore, which the hotel owed in the form of property tax, which the hotel authorities ignored.

The BBMP committee on Taxation and Finance had slapped at least three notices against the hotel demanding them to pay the property tax. But they did not care to pay up.

The BBMP revenue authorities, led by the BBMP joint commissioner (East) Yatish Kumar, swooped down on JW Marriott hotel and demanded that they pay their dues. They threatened to attach movable properties and also threatened to dump garbage.

When the authorities did not come forward to pay the arrears, Kumar ordered for the seizing of the furniture and other movable goods as they have been empowered to do so in the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act 1976.

When the BBMP staff were attaching and moving furnitures, the hotel administrative manager, Vinod, offered to pay Rs. 1.19 crore. However, Kumar declined to accept the part payment and demanded that they pay Rs 5.59 crore on the spot.

At last the hotel authorities relented and made a full payment. Of this Rs 4.39 crore was paid through demand draft, while a cheque of Rs 1.19 crore was issued in BBMP’s favour.

Chairman of the committee M. Shivaraju expressed happiness about the incident and said the present drive against tax defaulters would continue and nobody will be spared.