The civic administration is exploring the option of “capital base valuation” to calculate property tax, under which various factors will be considered, including the area of the property, ready reckoner rate in the area, age of the property, its use and type of construction, to arrive at the tax amount.
Presently, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) considers Annual Rateable Value (ARV) as the base price to calculate tax of a property. Civic officials said they have approached city-based Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE) to conduct a detailed study of the proposal, based on 28 key factors. Further steps would be planned based on the study outcome, they said.
Sources from PMC said, “The old properties are being charged minimal property tax, while new properties having same area as the old ones are paying much higher tax. In existing system, the scope is less to increase tax of old properties. The capital based valuation may help bring some uniformity in the taxation besides more categories can be added for imposing of property tax.”
Ajit Deshmukh, PMC’s property tax department head, said, “We cannot elaborate on the exact structure of calculation of property tax under the capital based valuation as it requires a detailed study which will be taken up by GIPE. We will be providing them all the required data and statistics.”
The PMC has 53 divisions of the civic limits and the ARV has been finalized on the basis of the ready reckoner rates of the areas in the regions.
An official from the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics said the negotiations with the PMC were still in the process and hence, till the time a decision has been reached between the two bodies, the institute would not be in a position to comment about the matter.
A PMC official said, “Under the present system, the properties are divided under the residential and commercial categories to calculate property tax. The proposed valuation system will study if categorization of the commercial properties is possible based on their commercial use like a shop, hotel, restaurant or an office space.”
