BHUBANESWAR: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will soon launch a door-to-door survey and trade licence audit to check tax evasion and bring all residential and commercial stakeholders to the purview of the online tax payment system.
Mayor Sulochana Das who chaired a meeting in this regard said the civic body will also bring new services including advertisement in the municipal area to the bracket of the online tax payment system to bring transparency to the system. Das said the drive will also be launched to encourage more people to avail of tax payment services digitally.
Municipal Commissioner Vijay Amruta Kulange said the civic body will soon launch door-to-door checking at ward level to find out the number of households and commercial units paying holding tax and a number of such establishments is not left out.
“The target for the same will be divided among the ward officers, while sanitation inspectors and Swachh Sathis will also be roped in this drive,” Kulange said.
Officials said after BMC mandated the online collection of holding tax and trade licence fees, the revenue generation has recorded a significant improvement. The revenue generation from holding tax that used to remain Rs 35 crore to around Rs 40-42 crore annually in offline and partially online mode, increased to over Rs 60 crore in 2020-21 and 2021-22 after the civic body switched to online mode to collect the tax.
Similarly, revenue collection through trade licenses that had remained around Rs 4 crore till 2019-20, has now gradually increased to Rs 4.5 crore in 2021-22 following collection of tax in online mode. Sources, however, said revenue generation has been badly hit as thousands of households, traders and business establishments are either out of this tax bracket or have been paying tax without re-assessment of their structure, causing revenue loss to the civic body in crores annually.
Though BMC had planned reassessment of approximately 62,000 houses for holding tax under its jurisdiction in 2021-22, sources said the task remains unaccomplished. Similarly, many traders are yet to renew their trade licenses.
BMC has set a target of collecting around Rs 120 crore towards holding tax this financial year of which Rs 20 crore has been collected till August. Likewise, it has planned to collect Rs 14 crore from trade licenses in 2022-23 and the collection has remained around Rs 2.64 crore till last month.