Cancelled receipts suggest property tax scam in NMC

  • | Saturday | 22nd September, 2018

Many times NMC employees at zone office counters ask the tax payer to bring the copy of the last tax receipt. Nagpur: A shocking fact has come to light wherein staffers of property tax department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) cancel the receipts after taking cash from taxpayers. Some Rs1.75 crore is lying in it and nobody knows whose tax money is lying in the account. Think of the amount of money embezzled,” he said.As NMC staffers destroyed the receipts, taxpayers got next fiscal’s demand along with arrears. He was provided a list of taxpayers who were issued tax receipts after taking cash from them but the NMC’s copy of receipt was cancelled.“NMC officials have no explanation as to why these receipts were cancelled.

Nagpur: A shocking fact has come to light wherein staffers of property tax department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) cancel the receipts after taking cash from taxpayers. Shankar Gulani, who has filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in Nagpur bench of Bombay high court, has charged that this amount was pocketed by the employees.Gulani had obtained information under Right to Information (RTI) Act in this regard. He was shocked to learn that between April 1, 2014, and September 6, 2016, some 14,000 receipts had been cancelled whose total comes to Rs28.56 crore. He was provided a list of taxpayers who were issued tax receipts after taking cash from them but the NMC’s copy of receipt was cancelled.“NMC officials have no explanation as to why these receipts were cancelled. This is a financial crime and criminal cases should be lodged against all concerned employees. I have obtained information only for two and a half years. This practice has been going on since years. Think of the amount of money embezzled,” he said.As NMC staffers destroyed the receipts, taxpayers got next fiscal’s demand along with arrears. The taxpayer then had to go to NMC zonal offices along with his copy of receipt and get the tax demand corrected. Many times NMC employees at zone office counters ask the tax payer to bring the copy of the last tax receipt. In spite of large number of such cases, NMC officials did not bother to find reason for the cancellations.Some NMC employees do not pocket the money but put it in suspense account. Some Rs1.75 crore is lying in it and nobody knows whose tax money is lying in the account. “As per accounting norms, money lying in suspense account has to be reconciled at the end of every financial year but this has not happened since years,” said Jatin Kumar, Gulani’s counsel.“We have demanded an enquiry by the accountant general of Maharashtra into working of NMC’s property tax department. The office should not only conduct a probe but suggest remedial measures so that such practices stop,” added Kumar.The PIL states that the civic administration does not even have ledger records of property tax owners, let alone maintain online data. It has suggested that the entire system needs to be overhauled by information technology (IT) initiatives and digitalization as mandated by policy initiatives of the state government. National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been made a respondent in the petition and it has been asked to set up a proper digital system for the property tax department.At a time when NMC is facing difficulty in meeting day-to-day expenses lack of efforts to plug revenue leaks reflect poorly on its officers and office-bearers.

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