Amid a public outcry against the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for issuing property tax notices to citizens based on recently processed e-khata data, the civic body has stated that the notices were being issued only to those property owners who have not declared the full extent of their property as per the digital data.
“What some citizens have been doing is that they declared less area in the property tax system than what is in their sale deed. Now in e-khata as sale deeds are obtained from Kaveri therefore area therein has been compared with area for which tax was paid. This was done electronically as Kaveri gives the area of flat in the sale deed,” Munish Moudgil, Bengaluru Special Commissioner (Revenue), said in a note on Saturday.
There has been an outcry in Bengaluru by citizens in recent weeks who have received notices since filing for electronic khatas (ownership documents) from the BBMP. The citizens have claimed to have been wrongfully taxed for the car park area and other amenities in the apartments.
“Only in cases where the area for which the property tax paid is less than the area in the sale deed, the BBMP has issued notices. Online options to file objections or appeals exist, and as per records decision will be taken,” the BBMP special commissioner said.
“Only a notice has been issued and citizens have full opportunity to reply/object online with documents at BBMPeNyaya.karnataka.gov.in,” he added.
This is a very transparent and online system as compared to the previous manual system under which local revenue inspectors/tax inspectors would issue notices, and appeals or objections were filed only manually to local assistant revenue officers, the official further said.
“That puts citizens totally in the control of the local staff. Further virtually no action could be taken in case of flats as it was next to impossible to measure flat areas manually,” the BBMP official said in the note.
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“Car parking is not added to the taxable area and is paid separately by everyone who declares car parking. The car parking is not added to the flat area for property tax purposes. It is separately payable at half the rate of the flat. This has been in position since 2008,” Moudgil said.
The Bengaluru Navanirmana Party (BNP) criticised BBMP in a statement on Friday and said the new notices to property owners on the basis of the e-khata were “arbitrary” and “legally flawed”.
The BNP cited the Supreme Court order in the ‘Nahalchand Laloochand Pvt Ltd vs Panchali Cooperative Housing Society’ to stress that parking areas cannot be taxed separately as they are part of the shared property in the super built-up area of an apartment block.
“Most sale deeds only grant rights over a parking space, and these spaces are not sold to the owner or taxed separately,” BNP leaders said.
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In some instances, property owners are being sent tax notices in retrospect, putting a huge financial burden on them, they added.