Tax arrears run into Rs 7.67 crores in Margao, council collects meager Rs 1.57 cr
Margao Municipal Council continuesto be in a financial crunch as the biggest revenue generating source – housetax – has hit a roadblock with arrears exceeding Rs 5.76 cr and Rs 2 crorespending from trade establishments and advertisement tax.
While MMC has upped its collectionfrom Rs 3 crore in 2011 to Rs 6.97 crores for April 2012 until July 2012 throughhouse tax from its 20 wards, it fails to recover arrears from defaultersespecially from commercial establishments.
On the huge amount of arrears,the MMC recovery officer, Anil Bandodkar reasoned that 45,000 homes are yet tobe issued house tax bills. Almost 6,000 house tax bills are issued per ward.
“We have completed issuing housetax bills in 12 wards. By the time all the 20 wards are covered the year comesto an end and the house tax demand converts into arrears,” Bandodkar said.
The MMC chief officer, SrinetKotwale pointed out that almost 50 per cent of flats and homes at Borda andFatorda are unoccupied and owners are either living in villages or they arenon-resident Goans based in Dubai, London or onboard the ship.
“For flats that are closed for a long period oftime we leave a message with neighbours. Now we are negotiating with threebanks to start e-filing of municipal taxes so that we can recover dues fromNRE’s,” Kotwale said.
The MMC has six men to handdeliver of the house tax bills which have to be paid within one month of receivingthe notice. The municipality is also hamstrung by wrong addresses given by thehouseholds.
“The addresses and house numbersissued by the MMC differ from the postal address issued by the mamlatdar, amajor reason why these bills cannot be posted. In 2008-09 we tried posting thebills but half of them came back as the addresses were wrong,” Damodar Helekar,head accountant incharge of the tax recovery team at the MMC said.
Helekar pointed out that MMC hasnow taken a decision to move for cancellation of licences and issue warrants tocommercial spaces that fail to pay trade licence dues, since some vendors owethe municipality over Rs 2 lakh each. The Chief Officer also admitted thatpolitical pressure from MLAs, councilors and former chairpersons has blocked recoveryprocess.
