BMC to take legal action against tax defaulters

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has said that property owners who fail to pay tax by March 31 will face legal action in the form of fine or auctioning off the property.

Issuing an advisory to the effect, the BMC said if an owner of property fails to pay property tax by the deadline of March 31 he must be ready to face legal action that could be in the form of fine or even seizure and auctioning of the said property.

For BMC, revenue from property tax is the second largest source of income after octroi. The civic body is expected to achieve its target of Rs2,800 crore in taxes till March 31.

The BMC is currently lagging behind by Rs600 crore from its targeted tax receipts of Rs2800 crore, BMC officials said.

The civic body is in the process of changing the system of calculating property tax from rateable value to capital value to bring about parity in computing tax in the island city and its suburbs. The new calculation will become effective with retrospective effect from April 1, 2010.