Chennai Corporation to slap 1% fine on property tax defaulters

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai, on July 12, 2010:

CHENNAI: The all-party meeting held in the Ripon Building to decide the fate of property tax defaulters has unanimously passed a resolution favouring imposing of one per cent fine charges for defaulters, on Monday.
Besides that, the meeting also resolved to give one per cent discount to those property tax payers who remit their charges well before the last date. According to sources, the move, besides enhancing further revenue to the Corporation, will also force the taxpayers to remit their property taxes on time.
Chaired by the Mayor M Subramanian, the meeting was necessitated after the Corporation Council discussed the issue last month and decided to postpone the resolution for further deliberations.

During the meeting last month, a few councillors had expressed apprehensions over the introduction of fine, which would not go well with the taxpayers.The move by the civic body to make taxpayers pay on time is seen as an initiative to get more tax revenue to fulfil the daily expenditure of the civic body, which is mounting by the day.

According to an estimate, the civic body is spending around Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crore every day to run the Corporation.

Revenue receipts are dried up due to most services like birth/death certificates and burial charges, being free.

The civic body in the last three years has launched several public welfare programmes (including number of schemes in health sector), which needs a sustained fund to run continuously.
Though the expenditure for the civic body has been increasing, it has not increased the property tax.