The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Withdraw increase in stamp duty, says Somashekar

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Saturday, Feb 16, 2008
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Withdraw increase in stamp duty, says Somashekar

Special Correspondent

Increase termed unscientific and anti-poor’
‘It will lead to undervaluation of property’

B. Somashekar

Bangalore: President of the State unit of the Janata Dal (United) B. Somashekar has urged Governor Rameshwar Thakur to reconsider the decision to increase the stamp duty by a whopping 20 per cent.

He told presspersons here on Thursday that the increase was unscientific and anti-poor. The move to evolve a uniform Guidance Value and Market Value for property across the State (under the slab system) was absurd and this had been amply reflected in the light of public response to the self assessment scheme. Besides, it was improper to increase property value to raise additional stamp duty at the cost of the poor as it would deprive the right of those concerned to purchase property at a reasonable price.

Mr. Somashekar said the Government had fixed a revenue target of Rs. 4,400 crore through stamp duty during the course of property registrations. It could, however, realise only Rs. 2,700 crore so far during the current financial year. The decision to increase the stamp value on registration of properties was a “deceptive” method to achieve its target, he said.

The former Revenue Minister said the market value of property in the previous year was on the higher side as the Government did not revise the guidance value. Now the market value had fallen owing to the Government’s far reaching decision to revise the guidance value obviously to step up the revenue. The decision would lead to undervaluation of properties and corruption.

He demanded that the Government take a cue from the policy it had adopted in 1999 for decentralising the assessment of property as it had found that applying a uniform yardstick for property in urban, semi-urban and rural areas was irrelevant and each property irrespective of urban or rural character would command separate value for various reasons.

In 1999 the then Government had constituted taluk-level committees to evaluate the properties. It had helped all sections of society realise their dreams of owning properties of their choice with fair stamp duty paid to the Government.

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