Nagpur: Glitches in the Property Tax portal of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) continue to give nightmares to the Nagpurians. Especially for regular tax payers, the errors in the assessment have made them miss the early bird rebate offer which was valid till June 30, according to reports.
The reports said that though officials of civic body appealed to citizens to avail 10 per cent discount on prompt payment of year’s taxes in a one go, they failed to rectify the errors on the data leaving citizens in the lurch. At tax collection counters in zones, the citizens were left dejected after being told that their tax assessment for the current financial year i.e. 2022-23 has not been finalized. This is quite surprising as the data is more or less already digitised and not much changes are required. This exposes that nothing is going right in the NMC and is quite frustrating for citizens who are prompt in payment of property tax, reports pointed out.
From the start of the new financial year, the NMC’s tax platform is giving trouble to citizens. There were many complaints as to whether the tax payment window was not responding or after keying all the details the transaction remained incomplete. One expected officials of the Revenue Department to take note of the concerns expressed by the citizens, but computing errors continued even after the end of the first quarter.
According to reports, a common problem cropping up is about the assessment bill for the current financial year. The bill is low which is quite perplexing. NMC has more or less stopped physical distribution of tax demands, for citizens the immediate reference is using the digital platform. But given the errors cropping up on a pretty large scale, the NMC officials need to revamp the site or update the data, feel citizens.
Even the clerks at the tax collection cash counters in zonal offices were foxed when the screen flashed figures that left them bewildered as in some cases, it was just a few hundred rupees whereas normal tax for previous year’s was in thousands of rupees. When the citizens asked about the reason, the clerk replied that current year’s tax is not yet computed and asked them to come back after a fortnight.
In some cases, the taxpayers were senior citizens and for them taking another trek to the zonal office and again standing in the queue to pay the tax is nothing short of a punishment. The errors on tax assessment are quite worrisome as Property Tax is now the major revenue head for the cash-strapped NMC.
Another issue, according to reports, that is troubling the citizens is that last year’s payments were not reflected in the tax portal. So, when the citizens downloaded the current year’s tax demand, the late fee was shown in the note. This despite the fact that one can get receipt of the payment made well before the due date during the last financial year. So, when the taxpayer submits the demand note, he is sometimes paying double tax as the person sitting at the counter believes the figure shown on the screen. There is no method on the tax portal for resolving these petty queries through online medium. A taxpayer has to visit the zonal offices where the officials of the Tax Department are not co-operative, reports pointed out.
