Kolhapur: The basis for assessment of the property tax is likely to come under scrutiny the corporators in the general body (GB) meeting that is taking place on Tuesday.On Thursday, the standing committee of the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation (KMC) passed on the proposal to keep the tax rates unchanged to the GB where the proposal is likely to be discussed threadbare. The focus of the discussion will be over the ‘capital value’ based system for calculation of the tax amount.The capital value-based system was introduced in 2011. The property tax was then linked with the ready reckoner rates of properties which means that the properties located at prime locations attracted the highest property tax charges.A senior corporator of the KMC said, “This system replaced the earlier system based on the carpet area of the building and it suddenly increased the tax amount by several times, which is a major reason for not accepting the tax hike proposal put up by the civic administration several times. Now, since the ready reckoner rates have increased several times over the period of the last eight years, the tax amount has also been increased. The tax charged by the KMC for the properties is much higher than the taxes charged by other such civic bodies.”Civic chief Abhijeet Chaudhari has taken the stand several times that he is against a reduction in the tax rates if the arrangement for the compensation of the losses that will take place after the reduction is not made. The activists have maintained that since the new tax system was introduced eight years ago, although the tax collection has increased, the civic administration has not been able to achieve the annual target for property tax set at the start of the financial year.Officials claim that since the system was introduced by the state government, there can be no rollback without the government’s permission.Diwakar Karande, KMC’s property tax superintendent said, “The capital based valuation of the property tax ensures fairness in the assessment. We have proposed to continue with the capital-based valuation of the tax. We are open for suggestions from the corporators.”

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