Revision of property tax in Bangalore and its legal issues

The Government has approved the revision of property taxes in BBMP limits after 7 long years and the hike is in the range 20% of residential buildings and 25% for commercial buildings.

It is also discovered that over 2 lakh property owners are not paying the taxes at all and out of 16.80 lakhs property owners, majority of them have falsified the actual size or extent of construction.

A group of citizens have demanded that katha be withdrawn for the properties which have violated the sanctioned building plan and There is also a possibility to link the tax payment to the sanctioned building plan.

The tax slabs have also been revised with the guidance value of the properties and the actual hike will be much more than 20% to 25%.

The burgeoning city has witnessed a growth of around 70 per cent with many suburbs seeing exponential appreciation in land prices. As a result, areas like Whitefield, Yelahanka and other suburbs are likely to jump two or even three tax zones. This will effectively hike property tax in these areas by 35 to 40 per cent.

The Urban Development Department  is finalizing the draft notification of the property tax revision and would be published in couple of days, so that the property owners can raise objections after considering which the final notification would be issued.

But, there is a legal problem for the revision, to revise the property taxes, The government should have set up the Karnataka Property Tax Board as per the  KMC Act, 1976 was amended in 2011, as per the recommendations of the 13th Finance Commission.

There is a demand that Illegal buildings, buildings with violation and B katha buildings must be taxed 5 times the normal tax.