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MCD chief against proposals on house tax rebates

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, AUG. 1. Arguing that the rebates if any in house tax under the Unit Area System were only for the poor, the Municipal Commissioner, Rakesh Mehta, has refused to accept the populist recommendations of the Hardship and Anomalies Committee of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Prominent among their recommendations are reducing the age of senior citizens from 65 to 60 years, and increasing the rebate of 30 per cent on property tax of senior citizens, ex-servicemen and women from 100 square metres to 200 square metres.

In his proposal before the MCD Standing Committee, Mr. Mehta has recommended that several of the proposals of Hardship Committee were not practical as it would adversely affect the financial condition of the civic body. The argument is based on the letter of the Assessor and Collector, Firoz Khan, in which he clearly stated: "Tax collections would suffer because the rate at which largesse is being distributed in the form of exemptions and rebates is not conducive to healthy growth of revenue collections. All this would result in a downfall of Rs. 300 to Rs. 400 crores."

The recommendations of the Hardship Committee are to be placed before the Standing Committee this Wednesday. Rejecting the recommendations of increasing the areas of rebate from 100 square metres to 200 square metres, the Commissioner suggested that this would not be desirable as this rebate is meant to be made available to poorer sections and not to higher income groups, who reside in properties having covered area more than 100 square metres.

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