Mangaluru City Corporation has initiated a drive to collect property tax under self-assessment scheme (SAS) by visiting the apartments through the resident welfare association of the apartment, said Mayor Premananda Shetty.
The visit will help to update the data of the flat owners and other minute details in the system of the MCC. The officials are visiting the apartments with laptops, so that data can be updated and the property tax can be collected via online mode of payment, he added.
In case the residents are unable to pay online, a challan is generated to help the residents to pay the tax in the bank branches, said the mayor to reporters.
There are around 5,000 apartments within MCC limits. There are over 2 lakh properties in Mangaluru City Corporation limits. After the online system of property tax payment was introduced on November 1, 2021, as many as 23,000 property taxes have been paid using the online application. A sum of Rs 7.04 crore property tax has been collected since November, he said.
Stating that the database of the available property owners is incomplete, the mayor said that the previous year’s property tax paid details are not uploaded properly. Even changes in khata are also not reflected in the system with the new owner’s name.
Those who are facing such issues while paying property tax online have to visit the concerned officer to get it updated in the system to pay the property tax. MCC will deploy additional data entry operators in the MCC office, to ensure that citizens are not inconvenienced while paying property tax, he added.
The mayor said that owing to the lack of available information on properties, the MCC could not carry out verification of properties under SAS since 2008. Now, with the online payment system, MCC will get all the details in the next year, which will help the urban local body to carry out verification of properties in the future.
In fact, with property owners failing to furnish accurate information on the properties, especially the plinth area of the property, the MCC was losing the tax amount, he said.
Once the property owners start paying property tax online, the MCC will send SMS to the registered phone numbers with the link to pay the tax along with the amount of tax to be paid. To pay the tax online, citizens have to open the link www.mccpropertytax.in/public and enter a 10-digit mobilephone number to generate an OTP, he added.
The citizens should also verify whether the building number, khata number, property ID, address of the property holder is in order and furnish the required details as sought, he said.
In case a property is given on rent, then the name of the tenant, along with their details, should be submitted. Details like the road in which the property is situated and the kind of property—commercial, residential and non-residential should be clearly furnished, said the mayor.
After furnishing the plinth area of the property, along with other details, a tax amount for payment will be generated, which can be paid through net banking using a debit card, GooglePay, PhonePe, or through bank transfer, he added.
MCC Commissioner Akshy Sridhar said that teams have been constituted to verify the tax payment details by visiting the houses and business establishments.