Half of the property owners avail the tax rebate

Bangalore
The end of May witnessed tax payers in big queues and in front of the BBMP portal paying property taxes as BBMP announced the last date for the payment of property taxes in full for the whole year with rebate as 30th May, 2015. In fact the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike (BBMP) gave an extension of tax payment dates from April 30th to May 30th for the tax payers to avail the rebates. The rebate of course was for the tax payers who would pay the property tax in full for the whole of the assessment year 2015-16.

The BBMP also announced that the property owners who would pay taxes in instalments can pay the first instalment by 30th May 2015 and tax payers paying taxes after this date would be penalized by an extra interest on the whole of the tax amount by 2 percent each month. The second instalment could be paid within November 29th, 2015. There was also an option of paying the taxes through online portal of BBMP. There, one can pay the taxes through a debit or a Master card issued by any of the banks.

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It was noted that the early birds paid the taxes to avail the discount and BBMP sources say that 8 lakhs among the 16.3 lakh property owners of the city paid taxes within May 30th and availed the discount. The total amount earned by the BBMP was Rs. 1.085 crore during the month of April and May, 2015. This was said to be Rs. 250 crore more than the last year’s collection.
Deputy Commissioner (Revenue) of the BBMP said the target of revenue that was set was Rs. 1200 crores for the months of April and May 2015 and the yearly target were Rs. 2900 crores. He opined that the collection signaled a good start and they hope to recover the remaining of the tax amount in the ensuing months. The deputy commissioner said that those who did not pay the taxes within the due date will have to pay the taxes with a 2 percent penalty charge as the interest on the whole year’s taxes each month.

Tax Payers Vexed due to online snags

Even after the expiry of the deadline of the payment of taxes with rebate on May 30th many tax payers still tried to pay taxes on Sunday, May 31st through the online portal of the BBMP (bbmp.gov.in) which was down for most of the time of the day.
The tax payers were vexed not because they couldn’t avail the rebate but due to the difficulty faced as the BBMP portal did not function properly. They were looking for an easy way of paying taxes. The IT wing officials of BBMP said that on May 30th the portal worked fine in spite of the heavy load as many tax payers were paying their taxes. They assured that the portal will be up and ready to use on Monday.

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