BMC to send corrected provisional property tax bills by Jan end

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will send corrected, provisional property tax bills to taxpayers by January end for the 2023-24 fiscal year, excluding the 15-20% hike it erroneously charged in December last year.

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will send corrected, provisional property tax bills to taxpayers by January end for the 2023-24 fiscal year, excluding the 15-20% hike it erroneously charged in December last year.

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In December, BMC issued security/ad-hoc bills, with a 20% hike which put an additional burden on the citizens. The matter was raised by former corporator Asif Zakaria with civic chief Iqbal Singh Chahal when the former paid the extra amount. The bills were earlier delayed for nine months due to the legal complexities in BMC’s retrospective tax assessment.

Sunil Dhamane, joint municipal commissioner said the corrected bills will be issued this week. “It will be credited into accounts, and adjusted in future bills,” he said.

Zakaria added, “The systems are generating new bills as per last year’s rate. They have withdrawn all the bills which were as per revised rates. The online system is being handled by the back office. Only those who had auto-debit ECS with BMC were affected and were charged. They have taken receipts back from us and will adjust it with other bills.”

Zakaria explained, “The BMC has wrongly forced citizens to pay the full amounts. The taxpayers were awaiting the new rule to be framed by the Corporation but shockingly, they received a bill with a hike of 15% to 20% as compared to the bills in 2022-2023 with a footnote in the bill stating that the bills were being issued as a security/ad-hoc basis until final policy. It puts an additional burden on the citizens, so the BMC should issue new bills by this week.”

A Santacruz resident said, “There is an annual rate which is constant on the property value based on which tax is computed. This year, there was talk that it would increase. The BMC usually gives a detailed statement of how much a flat and garage is charged and the bill is paid in two instalments in March and October. Last year’s March 2023 online bills were issued in December 2023 and we didn’t receive any physical bills. I realised on December 26 the bill appeared on the website and we promptly paid which was increased by more than 20%. My normal annual bill for my society was ₹1.8 lakh but I paid ₹2.34 lakh this time. There will be no need for a refund even if they issue a corrected bill as they can adjust it in my March 2024 bill.”