The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Municipality drive to collect tax arrears

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 22, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Municipality drive to collect tax arrears

J. Malarvizhi

Rs. 5,68,604 collected from 14 companies in Ambattur Industrial Estate

CHENNAI: Property tax arrears of Rs. 5,68,604 were collected from 14 companies in an Ambattur Municipality drive to collect taxes from defaulters in Ambattur Industrial Estate on Monday.

Equipment worth around Rs. 1,82,000 was seized from the sole company that did not pay its arrears.

Two teams headed by the Town Planning and Municipal Health officers, along with the Revenue and Sanitary Inspector and 50 sanitary workers, were involved in the exercise.

The municipality has an approximate Rs. 23 crore of arrears in property tax from 1994. Of this, around Rs. 9 crore remains tied up in litigation, while the remainder can be collected.

Traders' protest

A group of traders met the commissioner on Friday to protest the municipality's refusal to renew licences for those defaulting on payment of profession tax.

Municipality officials said that refusing to renew licences for defaulters was a legitimate means of collection.

Professional tax arrears are estimated to be around 4.5 crore. The traders' association was given three years to settle arrears after a High Court judgment in municipality's favour in 2001, said officials.

K. Mohan of the Ambattur Vanigar Sangam said that licence renewal and profession tax collection were covered by different rulings and should not be confused.

The municipality was collecting profession tax even from those who were earning less than Rs. 21,000 per half year, which is the minimum income for tax collection, he alleged.

Officials insisted that they were following the Act 59 of 1998, Tamilnadu Tax on Professions, Trades, Traders, Callings and Employments Act and had not exceeded the norms it laid down.

A traders' associations meeting was convened immediately after on Monday and the municipality's stand condemned. The resolutions included the demand that licence renewal be done immediately.

The association will hold a dharna outside the municipality premises on Thursday.

It will be followed by shopkeepers downing shutters as the next stage of protest, said a statement from the Vanigar Sangam on Tuesday.

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