Bengaluru: Cracking down on property tax evaders and those cheating the BBMP through under-declaration, the civic body has launched a hunt against industrial units, tech parks and commercial malls.
BBMP Taxation and Finance Committee chairman M.K. Gunashekar said that the city has 4,834 industrial units, 51 malls and 77 tech parks.
Most of these buildings have been evading or have made under-declaration to cheat the civic body on property tax.
Total station survey has been ordered on these major commercial structures at all the eight zones falling under the BBMP jurisdiction.
Some of the commercial malls subjected to the survey are VR Mall, RMZ Galleria, Manyata Tech Park, Elements Mall, Gopalan Mall, Central Mall, Kalyani Tech Park, MLR Convention Hall, Congnizant building, Oracle building, Sheraton Grant and World Trade Centre.
The survey has been completed and payment of tax vis-a-vis the tax paid by them is being validated.
The BBMP has achieved progress and in the next one week it would be able to announce the loss suffered and the exact tax to be collected from these units, he said.
“If any discrepancy is found, the BBMP has provision to issue notices and impose penalties. The penalty will be double the property tax payable. Further, the demand notice will be sent to these property owners and a deadline of 30 days will be given to them to reply to the notice and to pay the tax,” he said.
Last year, the BBMP earned Rs 300 crore extra revenue from defaulters. It is making preparations to collect adequate tax from Turf Club, said BBMP sources.
Under-declaration
Under the Self Assessment Scheme (SAS), citizens are at liberty to declare the extent of built-up area and to calculate the property accordingly. For example, if the built-up area of a property is about 5,000 sqft, some unscrupulous property owner could declare it as 3,000 sqft, evading taxes for 2,000 sqft which results in the BBMP suffering revenues losses.
