Many citizens and the Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) have urged the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) to extend the offline SAS property tax payment facility till all technical glitches in the online system are resolved, but the commissioner said offline property tax payment facility will not be reintroduced.
In a memorandum to MCC commissioner Akshy Sridhar, KCCI president Shashidhar Pai Maroor stated that the MCC’s online portal for payment of property tax has some teething issues.
“The ‘view property details’ option is either disabled or not functioning in the portal. If we click the ‘pay tax’ button, even if the earlier year’s tax has been paid for a particular door number – assessment number combination, it shows status as ‘not paid’ in some cases, and forces the user to input the details like uploading payment challan and tax paid receipt. This unnecessarily duplicates the work and is difficult, especially for those who are not tech savvy. For continued healthy property tax collection, offline mode may be continued till the time citizens are familiar with the online portal,” Maroor urged.
He suggested that incentives may be given to those who opt for online portal payment. He also urged that the last date for rebate of 5% for early payment may be extended to May 31, given the portal issues.
However, the MCC commissioner said all technical issues will be sorted out soon, and the offline property tax payment facility will not be reintroduced. “Such a decision will defeat the very purpose of introducing online payment system for tax payment. We are aware of the technical issues pertaining to the online tax payment system. We have been working to address all issues that taxpayers have been facing,” he said.
