Thursday, 31 March 2022 | PNS | Dehradun
In view of the end of the financial year, the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD) has started taking action against long time defaulters who have not deposited property tax for years. The tax section of the corporation took action against St Joseph’s Academy at Rajpur Road on Wednesday for not depositing property tax for the past six years. The tax superintendent Dharmesh Painuly informed that the tax section had sent the school administration many letters to provide self-assessment of their building to deposit the tax in the corporation. Despite this, the school administration neither provided the assessment of the building nor ever responded to any of the letters sent by MCD, said Painuly. On Wednesday, the team of the tax section arrived in the school building to take measurements of the property to estimate the total property tax. The tax superintendent said that the team has assessed the building and will soon issue a notice to the school to submit the tax along with a heavy penalty.
According to the officials, the corporation generally sends bills to big commercial bodies and reminders to deposit the property tax as part of the standard procedure followed by the tax section. If the administration of the receiver responds explaining when they can deposit the tax, the tax section does not impose penalties in most of the cases till the due time. However, the administration of St Joseph’s Academy did not respond to any of the letters or reminders sent by the corporation considering which, the team of the tax section had to go there personally to assess the building and will now impose a hefty penalty on the due property tax, said Painuly.
Meanwhile, the corporation has collected over Rs 32 crore property tax till Wednesday and the amount will possibly not increase much on the last day of the financial year on Thursday. There are about 1.10 lakh properties registered in the corporation but about 40,000 property owners are yet to deposit the tax. The officials informed that the corporation will start making the list of major defaulters in the first week of April to issue notices. Those who did not deposit tax this year will have to pay taxes of both financial years along with 12 per cent interest on the amount of pending property tax as the penalty, added the officials.
