Over Rs 5,300 crore recovered by BMC in property tax by end of FY23
Significantly, the BMC had initially announced a tax target of Rs 6,000 crore for the fiscal 2022-23, which it revised to 4,800 crore earlier this year. The civic body's total collection for the previous fiscal stood at Rs 5,792 crore.
MUMBAI: With the end of the financial year, the Brihanmumbai Municpal Corporation (BMC) recorded property tax collection of Rs 5,350 crore till Friday evening as against its revised target of Rs 4,800 crore for the year 2022-23.
Significantly, the BMC had initially announced a tax target of Rs 6,000 crore for the fiscal 2022-23, which it revised to 4,800 crore earlier this year. The civic body's total collection for the previous fiscal stood at Rs 5,792 crore.
Mahesh Patil, assistant municipal commissioner of the assessment and collection department, said that the last fortnight saw almost 15% of the total collection come in. "There has been a trend over the past few years that the last month of the financial year sees an increase in tax collections," said Patil, adding that this year's collection couldn't surpass last year's record owing to the Supreme Court upholding the Bombay high court's order on Fixing Capital Values.
"We had even filed a review petition on the case which has also been dismissed," said Patil. Supreme Court in November 2022 upheld the Bombay HC order quashing the rules framed by BMC for levying property taxes based on the capital value of the land under construction.
The Central Mumbai Developers Welfare Association (CMDWA) had filed the petition challenging the rules framed under the capital value system by the BMC. The capital value system considered the future value of the property with its development potential for the levy of taxes and not the present value of land.
Already, flats measuring up to 500sqft of carpet area are exempt from property tax because of which BMC's collection has taken a Rs 500 crore hit.
Property tax is the second-largest source of revenue for the BMC, and in the last financial year 2021-22, the total collection stood Rs 5,792 crore. Prior to that, in the pandemic year, property tax collection had taken a major hit as civic data shows collections in the fiscal year 2019-20 was only Rs 3,735 crore.
Source - indianexpress.com
