Cong opposes South Delhi civic body’s tax move

Abhishek Dutt, Delhi Congress vice-president and leader of the party in SDMC, has written to the civic body’s mayor Anamika Mithilesh and the commissioner to roll back the “anti-people” decisions.

The Delhi unit of the Congress has moved a private members’ proposal that has opposed the introduction of professional tax and an 1% increase in the transfer of property tax by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) authorities ahead of the civic body’s meeting slated for August 28.

File photo: Congress party logo (ANI)

Abhishek Dutt, Delhi Congress vice-president and leader of the party in SDMC, has written to the civic body’s mayor Anamika Mithilesh and the commissioner to roll back these “anti-people” decisions. He has also written to the councillors of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to support the cause and roll back the tax hike in a bid to ensure that the public “do not have to pay extra” amid the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak.

On July 27, SDMC had introduced the professional tax, which is also applicable to those who are self-employed, and had also increased the duty on transfer of properties by 1%.

Dutt pointed out to the SDMC secretary that imposing another tax would cause financial difficulty for the residents of Delhi at a time the country is fighting the pandemic.

“Parents are not being able to pay school fees of their children. People cannot pay rent and meet other monthly expenses because of the pandemic. It is not an opportune moment to either introduce or hike taxes. The corporation should bring a proposal in its next sitting on August 28 to roll back professional tax, hike in transfer duty tax and other taxes in public interest,” said Dutt, who is a Congress councillor from Andrews Ganj.

The SDMC professional tax is exempted for those, whose monthly income is Rs 50,000, or Rs 6 lakh per annum.

However, the civic authorities have levied a monthly professional tax of Rs 100 for those, whose earnings are between Rs 50,000 and Rs 75,000 a month.

Similarly, the monthly tax will be Rs 100 and Rs 200 for those whose earnings are between Rs 75,000 and Rs 1 lakh and above Rs 1 lakh, respectively.

The civic body had also moved a proposal to hike tax on the transfer of immovable properties by 1% on properties, whose valuation is more than Rs 25 lakh as per the circle rate.

Earlier, the transfer duty was 3% and 2% for male and female buyers, respectively.

The civic body had also approved the recommendations of its municipal valuation committee-3 (MVC-3) to double the tax on rented commercial properties.

However, SDMC had deferred the proposal to increase electricity tax from 5% on the bill amount to 6%. The electricity tax is added in the power bill and collected by discoms on behalf of the corporation.

Mithilesh said that such “harsh” steps were taken to improve the civic body’s financial situation.

“We have refrained from imposing any tax in the past few years. But this time the situation is different. Our financial condition has worsened because of the pandemic. We had no option but to levy professional tax and also hike tax rates in certain other categories,” she said.

She, however, refused to commit if these proposals would be rolled back in the next sitting of the House.

The ruling AAP had also opposed the move and had staged a protest in July. They had also staged a protest last Thursday, when the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) authorities had brought similar proposals such as imposition of professional tax and increase rates of electricity tax and transfer duty. The north corporation had to postpone the proposals due to widespread opposition from the AAP.

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