Mysore/Mysuru: The Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) Council has decided to increase Property Taxes by 15 percent which will come into effect from Apr. 1, 2021. 

The hike will cover all residential and commercial buildings, vacant sites, industries, trusts, cinema and marriage halls, commercial complexes, community halls, malls, choultries, hotels, schools, charitable trusts and colleges. The decision was taken at the meeting of the Council held yesterday that was presided over by Mayor Rukmini Madegowda. Deputy Mayor Anwar Baig and MCC Commissioner Shilpa Nag were present. With the revision, the cash-strapped MCC is expected to rake in an additional Rs. 30 crore more than the existing revenue. At present, the Civic Body collects about Rs. 150 crore and with the revision, it will gain Rs. 180.34 crore. 

In an effort to raise revenues of City Corporations, the State Government this year has passed an ordinance that allows yearly upward revision of tax on properties coming under all City Corporations of the State, barring BBMP. The Act enables yearly enhancement of property tax in the range of 3 to 5 percent in all 10 City Corporations — Mysuru, Davanagere, Ballari, Tumakuru, Shivamogga, Hubballi-Dharwad, Belagavi, Vijayapura, Mangaluru and Kalaburagi — in the State.

Earlier, the property tax used to generally undergo a revision once in three to five years, when the Government raised taxes by 15 to 30 percent at once. But the new Bill will allow the City Corporations to enhance property taxes in their limits by 3 to 5 percent every year. Yesterday’s decision to hike Property Tax in Mysuru is based on this Act. However, the 15% hike was opposed by former Mayors Ayub Khan and Arif Hussain and Corporators Prema Shankaregowda and SBM Manju who argued that the taxes will burden the people who are already burdened by COVID. Opposing the hike, Corporators from Opposition benches felt that the hike was steep and would burden the middle class and the poor. 

Rs. 30 crore increase

Commissioner Shilpa Nag told the Council that actually, the property tax had to be revised in 2020 after it was increased in 2017. The MCC could not do so due to Coronavirus contagion. She said that MCC has set a target of collecting Property Tax amounting to Rs. 150 crore from 1,83,949 properties and with a 15% hike, the MCC will gain Rs. 180.34 crore with an addition of Rs. 30 crore, she explained.

“In the previous years, 85 to 90% of Property Tax used to be collected but this time only 60% has been collected. We have initiated measures to collect dues and all the officers of nine Zones are at it,” she clarified. Cinema halls, kalyana mantaps, hotels, lodges, choultries and community halls fall under super-commercial category. “We have included malls too in this category and instead of super-commercial, we have categorised commercial buildings as Commercial-B and Commercial-A,” she explained. 

Commercial-B properties exempted

Till now, all commercial buildings were treated as commercial and super-commercial properties and as cinema halls, kalyana mantaps, hotels, lodges, choultries and community halls fall under super-commercial category, more taxes were levied. 

“This particular tax system is unique to Mysuru city and exists nowhere in Karnataka. As such, there was a demand from owners of such properties to make it a uniform tax for all properties,” Shilpa Nag said. Henceforth, instead of super-commercial, the MCC is proposing to categorise commercial buildings as Commercial-B and Commercial-A. Since taxes for Commercial-B is high at present, the new hike will not come into effect for them.

“Commercial-B properties have been exempted from the Property Tax increase but they will have to pay the pending taxes,” the Commissioner proposed and this was accepted by the Council. The Council also approved the process of collecting or exempting taxes from schools, colleges and charitable trusts as per rules.

Elected for Committees

Meanwhile, Corporator Shivakumar was elected as the Opposition leader and Ashwini Ananthu was elected the leader of the ruling party. For the Rangacharlu Purabhavan (Town Hall) Committee, S. Sathwik, Pushpalatha Jagannath, Pramila Bharat, Mohammad Rafiq, V. Lokesh, H.M. Shanthakumari and V. Ramesh were elected. 

For the Ambale Annaiah Pandit Free Student Hostel Committee (Poor Student Feeding Committee) where Mayor is the Chairman and Deputy Mayor is the nominated member, Bhagya, J. Gopi, Geethashree Yoganand, Shobha and M. Lakshmi were elected. 

For Farm Committee where Deputy Mayor is the Chairman, Samiulla (Ajju), Savood Khan, M.U. Subbaiah, C. Vedavathi, Basheer Ahmed and Syed Hasrathulla were elected.