Sunday, May 5, 2013

SAS helped evasion of BBMP property taxes by commercial developers, some IT sector?

While the self assessment scheme (SAS) for property tax assessment was an original idea of the BMP there was support from BATF in terms of branding and marketing it. Yet the batf hyped up the SAS based on the transparency criteria and so while the common tax payer paid up their dues, the big wigs including WIPRO, Phoenix mall etc evaded the same; see below., wipro allegedly did not pay for a few years (total amount being Rs 19.28 crores)

The question is did the batf's support help in this evasion of property taxes? Did big properties remain un assessed ? So then without checks and balances by officer visiting the premises for simple assessment of properties huge amounts of taxes worth crores were evaded?

on top of all this evasion BBMP was not allowed to raise property taxes as per law.

This is a dangerous trend since it deprives the allocation or expenditure of funds for the basic needs for which the local property taxes are most important.

e.g. see news report below
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CHITRA V. RAMANI


PTI A Bangalore Bruhat Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) squad conducting a "Drum Beating" session in front of the Wipro headquarters in Bengaluru on Friday.

Drumbeaters hired by the BBMP gathered outside Wipro’s head office


The IT city’s civic authority, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), applied thought and came up with a winner here on Friday. On a day when Wipro Ltd. announced its third quarter results, BBMP officials were busy drumming up pressure to get the Bangalore-based bellwether to cough up Rs. 19.28 crore in property dues.

Even as the country’s third largest software company trumpeted a net profit of Rs. 1,716 crore, a team of the feared drumbeaters hired by the BBMP gathered outside Wipro’s head office at Doddakannelli village, Sarjapur.


INSTANTANEOUS EFFECT

The effect was magical. Embarrassed company officials hastily handed over a cheque for Rs. 5 crore to Ramanand Rai, Deputy Commissioner, Mahadevapura Zone, with a promise to clear the remaining dues in a week, a gleeful official told The Hindu, adding that Wipro had not paid its property tax for five years. The official said the BBMP had sent several reminder notices, the latest on January 11.


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At Tesco, the committee found that the establishment owed the BBMP nearly Rs. 10 crore. On insistence, Tesco immediately cleared 40 per cent of the dues by paying Rs. 4 crore.

Phoenix Mall owes the BBMP Rs. 3.5 crore.
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reference

  1. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/civic-body-applies-thought-to-force-wipro-to-fork-dues/article4320422.ece
  2. http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/bbmp-panel-collects-rs-5-cr-property-tax-dues-from-malls/article4412112.ece

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