MCG suffered revenue losses amounting to Rs 461.7 crore between 2010-11 and 2021-22 as it was unable to levy and collect property tax from 1,252 institutional property owners due to unavailability of records, an audit of its taxation department has found.
Its report pointed out that names of owners of these properties falling under MCG’s zones 1 and 4 were missing from the corporation’s records.
The audit, which was carried out by the office of the Haryana principal accountant general (audit), also revealed that the zonal taxation officers (ZTOs) concerned didn’t make any attempts to look for the missing records. They also didn’t seek details of the owners of these properties from the revenue department, the audit report stated.
According to the report, which was released recently, 961 properties in zone 1 are categorised as institutional properties as of October 31, 2021, of which property IDs of 430 properties were found to have the owners’ names missing. In the absence of proper records of property IDs, MCG could not collect property tax and fire tax amounting to Rs 200.3 crore.
In zone 4, of 1,233 units categorised as institutional properties, names of owners were missing in property IDs of 746 plots. This led to losses of property and fire tax amounting to Rs 261.4 crore to MCG, the report said. It didn’t mention property tax losses for zones 2 and 3 in the city.
The report further read, “It was informed that the property tax could not be levied in absence of proper records. No initiative was taken by the ZTO concerned to search for the details of owners from the revenue department of MCG as well as from the state revenue department for serving notices.”
Moreover, in zone 1, MCG provided 100% rebate to 99 institutions and four basements of commercial properties — including shopping malls — in 2021, causing revenue losses of nearly Rs 3.8 crore. In zone 4, the civic body gave 100% rebate to 67 institutions and basements of commercial properties that year, resulting in losses of Rs 5.8 crore.
MCG, meanwhile, said the property tax revenue losses mentioned in the audit report won’t be written off. “We will recover that amount and it is likely that interest will also be charged. But it may take some time to rectify the property ID data, get the records updated and recover the dues,” said a senior MCG official.
