Hyderabad
The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has warned that city dwellers who do not pay property tax on time will now have to pay a two percent penalty each month. GHMC allows people to pay Property tax twice in a financial year in equal installments.
However, the Penalty need not be paid for the first three months of the first six months and the first three months of the second half of the year, the authorities say. However, if you do not pay property tax for a year, you will have to pay tax with a penalty of 24%.
The cash-strapped Corporation is in dire need of funds. For various reasons, the corporation fell short of tax collection targets. GHMC covers 17,34,411 taxpayers with commercial, residential, and mixed buildings.
Of this, property tax of about Rs 887 crore has been paid so far on 9,06,486 properties. The rest should also pay immediately and get an exemption from the 2 percent penalty, officials said. The corporation is also identifying the buildings where commercial businesses are running in residential areas and the property tax is being under-estimated and are correcting them to increase the revenues.