MYSURU: With Mysuru City Corporation’s (MCC) recent announcement of a five per cent rebate on basic tax for those who file their taxes before April 30, several residents are rushing to their nearest MCC zonal offices to pay the taxes. However, since the corporation has not enabled the facility of paying the tax online, most property owners are forced to shell out extra money to get the application form filled.
Property owners pay Rs 50 to application fillers, who can be found in the nine zonal offices. Owners have no other option since nobody else knows the standard depreciation that has to be applied to the property and the various kinds of cess one has to pay, such as library cess, UGD Cess, health, destitute, solid waste management and others.
S Rajan, a resident of Srirampura, said: “All these years we were paying Rs 30 to fill applications. This year, they are demanding Rs 50 to Rs 100. If the cess amount is displayed on a notice board, then we can all fill the property tax forms without this additional payment.”
Ittegegud resident Meenakshi Devi explained that if property tax filing is made available online, the MCC staff will lose the Rs 50 that is collected from every property owner. “It appears that the MCC has purposefully appointed staff to collect the money. Property owners are kept ignorant of the actual rates so that owners are forced to approach the corporation,” she added.
“Nearly 2,000 people visit zonal offices to pay taxes during the month of April. Form fillers must get at least Rs 1,00,000 a day. We don’t even get a receipt for the extra Rs 50,” rued Rangappa, a resident of Jayanagar.
Demand for digital payment
The corporation still follows the system of collecting cash after entering the denomination in the challan. One has to stand in a queue, sometimes for more than one-and-a-half hours as only cash is accepted.
S Chandra, a businessman, suggested: “There are several digital payment gateways and every nationalised bank has introduced their own digital payment software that can be used on smartphones. The MCC should think of adopting modern technologies so that the transactions will be easier.”
Response so far
The number of properties in Mysuru is 1,97,000 and the property tax due is around Rs 210 crore. The MCC claims to receive a good response after announcing the five per cent rebate on tax and exact figures will be available in the first week of May.