Civic body enables both offline and online payments to speed up tax collection process 

Mysore/Mysuru: Desperate to mop up resources, the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC) has speeded up its annual property tax collection and has made arrangements for both online and offline tax payment. The online payments can be made after receiving the Property Identification Number (PID) from the MCC Zonal Offices.

With the 5 percent rebate extended till the end of July, the MCC has decided to streamline the process and has allowed payments in both the modes. Till yesterday, the MCC has collected over Rs. 12.26 crore from all its nine Zonal Offices. From May 1 till June 4, over Rs. 11.6 crore had been collected and on June 5, Rs. 64.6 lakh was collected.

As a first step towards online tax payment, the MCC began the process of collecting taxes through PID since May 1, 2020 where each property owner is asked to produce the receipt of previous tax payments (SAS forms) and the already mapped and allotted PID will be given to them.

After the receipts and SAS forms are submitted to the respective MCC Zonal Offices, the officer, following the verification of the documents, collects the phone number of the tax-payer and tells the tax-payer that he/she will be called to pay the tax at a given date and time. After this, the specified tax amount is disclosed to the tax-payer so that payment can be made at the Zonal Office counters.

Mysuru has over 1,85,000 properties except revenue properties and this year’s revenue target is Rs. 160 crore. By the end of July and before the 5 percent rebate window ends, the MCC is expecting a property tax revenue collection of Rs. 60 crore. Also, a revenue of Rs. 20 crore is expected from revenue properties.

Ledger entry verification

Before even the process started, all properties were physically and electronically verified and its extent, built up area, floor area ratio, extent of open space, space abutting the roads, exact distance from the main road or cross roads have been entered in the ledgers at the respective Zonal Offices.

Once a tax-payer approaches the counter to pay taxes, his last year’s SAS forms are taken and his phone number is collected. Here the actual process begins. The SAS form is tallied with the property details entered in the ledgers and the PID is allotted. A detailed verification is carried out so that there is no room for errors or data mismatch.

This is done because from next year, the property tax payment process will be made majorly online, say MCC Revenue Section Officers. After the verification and the PID is generated, the tax-payer is asked to pay either online or offline. The benefit of the PID is that when the number is entered in the system, all the property details including the tax due displays on the screen. 

On inordinate delay

Regarding the complaints by residents that though they submit last year’s tax paid receipt and the copies of SAS documents, the MCC officers never call them even after 15 to 20 days, MCC officers said that it will take time for detailed verification and sometimes, the Zonal Offices are hit by server issues.

“We try our best to call the tax-payer within two or three days after they submit their previous year’s SAS forms. Sometimes there are unforeseen delays,” officers said. They added that in each Zonal Office, 75 to 100 tax-payer ledgers are verified every day. “This is evident as every day, our Zonal Offices handle crowd between 75 and 166 tax-payers,” Revenue Officers said.