Corporation offers ‘Verify Your Tax’ feature

After several property owners in the city raised concerns over the recent revision of property tax rates, the Greater Chennai Corporation has introduced a new feature on its website to help them verify their tax rates, on Friday. .

To bring more clarity toproperty owners about the revised tax rates, the civic body has introduced the new ‘Verify Your Tax’ feature in addition to the already existing Property Tax Calculator.

“Many property owners have misunderstood the calculation of new tax rates. To clarify them, the new feature has been introduced. If the mistake is on our part, we will rectify it if the concerned property owners send a petition,” said a senior official.

According to the official, all registered property owners could use the facility by entering their registered mobile phone number. “Once the phone number is entered, the property owner will receive an OTP (One-Time Password). The tax rates for theparticular property can be viewed using the OTP,” the official added.

The system would show pre-revised tax as per record and new property tax as per the revision. Apart from this, ‘property tax ought to have been paid as per pre-revised street rate’, too, would be shown. If the difference between the pre-revised tax and ‘ought to have been paid’ rates is high, it would be because the property was under-assessed earlier, the official said.

Explaining the rationalebehind introducing the new feature, the official said, “One of the common complaints we receive is regarding the several-fold hike of tax rates. For the properties for which the tax rates were under-assessed, we have re-assessed the rates based on the old rate before revising them according to the new revision. The new feature will help the property owners understand.”

The official added that if any assessee feels that the tax is calculated wrongly, they can submit the appeal with the Deputy Commissioner (Revenue and Finance) or Regional Deputy Commissioners through written application or email to adcrevenue@chennaicorporation.gov.in, rdcnorth@chennaicorporation.gov.in, rdccentral@chennaicorporation.gov.in, rjcsouth@chennaicorporation.gov.in.

Notwithstanding the fact that stiff hike in property tax rate has come to become the most commonly heard complaint in the city, the Greater Chennai Corporation officials claimed that they had received only about 1,200 appeals so far. “Appeals are being received by Deputy Commissioner (Revenue and Finance) or Regional Deputy Commissioners. We fixed a 15-day deadline for the public to send appeals, but we will continue to receive the appeals for few more days,” an official said. The official added that the civic body had completed distributing revision notices to all the 12.5 lakh property assesses in the city though channels including self-help groups and the Postal department. “The appeals will be heard zone-wise from next week,” the official added.