Number of Chennai residents paying property taxes by online has been increasing
Posted on: 02/Feb/2021 9:29:28 AM
It has been confirmed by official data from the GCC that the number of people paying property taxes online has been increasing and has crossed the 50% mark now.
According to a senior officer belonging to GCC, a few years back the number of people who paid property taxes online was 30percent. He has stated that at present 55% of 12.3 lakh assesses have been paying their property taxes online.
The GCC has associated with the online payment system (BBPS that is managed by NPCI) to make the things simpler for the Chennai residents. It is known that state power utility Tangedco has been offering power consumers to pay their bills through this, which could be linked through their UPI systems. The official belonging to GCC explained that once it got integrated then every time the payment due would be automatically shown up on the citizens UPI application on the mobile phone. By this, more people would be paying their taxes online.
Bank walk-in payment:
By means of a link on the website, the GCC offers the residents an option to pay property taxes online now. Truth is that GCC has got tie ups with many banks for the people to pay their property taxes. This is known as bank walk-in payment. Against a target of around Rs 830 crores, GCC had collected around Rs 350 crores in property taxes for the financial year 2020-21.
A concession of five percent for those who pay their taxes from 1st to 15th of month has been announced by the civic body. For getting a rebate in October, 95000 assesses have paid their property taxes and GCC had collected an amount of Rs 65 crores in this time.
A major share of the revenue of the GCC comes from the property taxes and any delay in paying taxes would affect the implementation of important civic infrastructure projects. It is learnt that residents living in the suburbs of Chennai want the facility of online taxes payment just like those living in the city. Truth is most of the civic bodies do not have their own website and the online payment would not be possible.
It was brought out by a resident belonging to the Pallavaram municipality that there was no awareness among the residents about such a system in their municipality. In Avadi Corporation, the facility has been available but the residents faced issues. This was pointed out by an activist.
