While Madurai Corporation Commissioner Dinesh Kumar has ordered the temporary dismissal of 5 tax collecting employees involved in reducing the property tax for 150 buildings, the corporation has lost Rs 1.50 crore due to this malpractice incident.
There are more than 3 lakh buildings including houses, commercial complexes and shops in 100 wards in 5 mandals of Madurai Corporation. Corporation Revenue Department officials fix property tax on these buildings and usually collect property tax once in 6 months. The tax collection officers (Bill Collectors) headed by the respective Zonal Assistant Revenue Officers directly visit the newly constructed buildings in each ward, measure them and determine the property tax.
In the past, property tax assessment and tax collection were largely unsupervised by tax collectors for new buildings. So, the tax collectors have been taking money and fixing less property tax on buildings and deceiving people with political background by not collecting property tax.
In this case, after Dinesh Kumar’s arrival as Corporation Commissioner, the property tax collection situation and newly assessed buildings are being inspected weekly at the Corporation Central Office, Deputy Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners of Revenue Department, Assistant Revenue Officers and Tax Collectors are participating in the inspection meetings.
When I checked the property tax online last Friday, suddenly the information related to property tax assessment of some buildings was missing. When the buildings were inspected, it was found that the property tax was illegally reduced. Shocked, he ordered a special committee headed by 2 assistant commissioners in all 100 wards of the corporation to examine the property tax of all buildings.
Subsequently, 76th Ward Tax Collector K. Ramalingam (Zone-3), P. Mariammal (5th Zone Junior Assistant), 6th Ward P. Ravichandran (1st Zone) who committed malpractice in property tax assessment in the first phase. , 64th Ward Tax Collector M. Kannan (2nd Zone) and 85th Ward Tax Collector P. Athimulam (4th Zone) were ordered by Commissioner Dinesh Kumar to be temporarily dismissed (suspended).
Corporation officials said that tax collection employees are doing the work of new property tax and tax collection through an online software. If you want to levy tax on a new property, you can log in from the ID of the tax collector and determine the property tax in the software, and then go to the IDs of Junior Assistant, Assistant Revenue Officer, Assistant Commissioner.
Of these, if the square footage is excessive, it will be brought to the attention of the Deputy Commissioner. Once a tax is levied in this manner, the tax can either be reduced by obtaining an order from the court or by passing a resolution in the municipal council meeting. But, without following this procedure, the tax collection staff have reduced the property tax for a total of 150 buildings in 5 mandals of the corporation.
For these 150 buildings, the property tax due to the corporation for 6 months has been reduced by Rs.25 lakh. This malpractice has taken place in the years 2022 and 2023. He said that the corporation has incurred a loss of property tax of Rs 1.50 crore due to this malpractice.
