Big Fish Attempt to Escape from House Tax Payments in Godavari Districts

Kakinada: The adage that big fish always escape the net is proving to be right in collection of house taxes in Kakinada, West Godavari and East Godavari districts. Those avoiding the tax include many educational and medical institutions.

Against the estimated collection of Rs.274.19 crore, only Rs.103.80 crore have been mopped up from the three districts. The government is exerting pressure on officials to ensure cent per cent tax collection by the end of February.

Sources revealed that many panchayats stopped collecting house taxes from 2016. This led to other panchayats not mopping up tax from 2017 and 2018. Only owners who have sold or purchased property have paid their taxes for registering their deeds.

In Kakinada district, collection of house tax is Rs.21.27 crore against the total Rs.86.19 crore. Two educational institutions in Surampalem village in Gandepallil mandal have to pay more than Rs.1.27 crore as tax. But they have refrained from payment demanding that panchayat officials reduce their tax by half. They are bringing pressure on panchayat officials from influential politicians.

However, village sarpanch M. Ganga Bhavani is not yielding to pressure and wants the institutions to pay their full tax. Ganga Bhavani said she has approached the court seeking a directive to district officials to collect tax without any deduction, as tax had been fixed as per law after following all the rules.

Telugu Desam senior leader Posini Babu Rao said educational institutions are squeezing amounts from parents and students, but refusing to pay their own property tax.

Kakinada district Panchayat officer M. Balamani said an oil exploration company at P. Mallavaram village has to pay ₹18 crore. But the company has approached the High Court for deduction of tax.

In East Godavari district, the total tax to be collected is ₹125 crore. But only `44 crore have been collected. District Panchayat officer V. Santha Lakshmi said that a private medical college has to pay ₹7 crore and a paper mill ₹3.50 crore. But they are demanding a reduction in the tax. Santha Lakshmi said there is no provision to reduce tax once it has been fixed.

West Godavari district Panchayat officer N. Ramnath Reddy is hopeful of collecting higher taxes compared to the last year. He pointed out that West Godavari stood first by collecting 90 per cent of the tax last year.

Officials maintain that only if bigwigs pay their taxes would tax collection improve. The same could be utilised for development of villages.