The publication of the list of property tax defaulters by the Municipal Corporation was expected to spark a flurry of complaints and objections. Although more than 70% of the data has been published, the number of complaints so far has been less than 30.
As a result, the civic body adjourned the property tax court, which it had scheduled for Monday, expecting a large number of complaints from the wards.
The issue of property tax collection came to the fore after a dispute over misappropriation of funds by some officials in the zonal offices of the corporation.
software issues
The debate on this also revealed issues related to accumulation software used for property tax collection.
Some payments made offline as well as online were not reflected in the online system as these were not being updated on the same day.
The system also suffers from issues including database inconsistencies. These technical issues are being rectified and the database is being cleaned for each ward.
for the current year
The corporation has been publishing a list of tax defaulters from each ward for the past few weeks, including those whose tax payments are pending for the second half of the current year.
Till Tuesday, the list of 71 wards has been released.
A total of 22 complaints have been received so far under the head office, while four complaints have been received in Kazhakuttam zone.
The corporation will hold a court to take up some of these complaints in the coming weeks, as it has already announced a court.
on a higher amount
Those who have objection to the list of tax defaulters published can lodge their complaint online or in the corporation office.
The complaint can be either about the tax paid which is not reflecting in the database or about the amount demanded as tax.
According to the officials of the corporation, most of the complaints so far have been demanding more tax amount.
Meanwhile, the wealth tax collection in the corporation has seen a huge jump in the last two months, after the tax database clean-up process and the publication of the list of defaulters began.