VIJAYAWADA: As much as Rs 426 crore additional financial burden per annum will fall on urban people due to 15 percent hike of property tax and imposing of new tax on garbage collection, according to economic experts.
There were 33.67 lakh assessments in municipalities, towns and cities in 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh. The Corona pandemic crisis put a huge impact on the earnings and the increase of property tax and new garbage tax is further increasing financial hardships. The opposition parties and various citizen forums staged a series of protests against the double taxes but in vain as the municipal corporations passed resolutions to implement government orders which became a big worry.
According to reports, Rs 186 crore would be imposed as a new financial burden through property tax hike and Rs 240 crore will be another extra financial burden due to imposing of new tax on garbage collection. The recent council meeting of Vijayawada Municipal Corporation passed a resolution to implement property tax hike and new tax imposing on garbage collection amidst severe protest from opposition parties. The Tirupati and Anantapur municipal corporations also passed the resolution unanimously. Only Guntur Municipal Corporation passed a resolution seeking the government to reduce the proposed 15 percent hike to 13 percent. Further, other municipal corporations and municipalities are readying to impose the government decision to hike taxes.
Taxpayers G. Aanjaneyulu and K. Bhaskar said the state government, agreeing to the conditions of the Central government to get extra financial assistance, was imposing new tax on garbage collection. They said every house and shop was paying taxes in various forms to the corporations and municipalities for civic services but this time the government categorising these services imposing taxes separately was severely objectionable. They expressed fear that the government was running away from its responsibilities by changing the tax system and imposing tax on garbage collection as there were chances of privatising garbage collection in the future.
D. Ramu and S. Koteswara Rao said property tax on annual rent basis was better as property owners would pay the tax from their rent revenue. They said the 15 percent tax hike was based on capital value which would create a lot of trouble for owners to pay tax which would be higher than his revenue of rents.
AP Urban Citizens Forum convenor Ch Babu Rao said about crores of rupees would be extracted from urban people across the state per annum while people were suffering from the first and the second waves of Covid while the third wave seemed to be inevitable. He alleged that the state government was yielding to the Central government's conditions against the welfare of the people in the state.
He deplored that the YSRCP government, which claimed to be the people's government, never responded to the series of protests against property and garbage tax. The leader warned that people would teach a befitting lesson to YSRCP in the elections if it failed to provide relief during the Corona crisis and demanded that the government cancel garbage tax and property tax hike decision.
Minister for municipal administration and urban development Botsa Satyanarayana refuted allegations of the government imposing huge financial burden and claimed that property tax would be reduced to the lower and middle income groups.
