Surprise tax burden for hotels under North Corp

In a bid to “increase revenue”, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation has allegedly picked up an unimplemented decision from 2004 and asked small and medium hotel owners to pay nine-year dues of a hiked portion of property tax. Ritam Halder reports.

In a bid to “increase revenue”, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation has allegedly picked up an unimplemented decision from 2004 and asked small and medium hotel owners to pay nine-year dues of a hiked portion of property tax.

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North Corporation officials have allegedly sent notices in an attempt to collect all due taxes, thereby creating a huge burden for these hotel owners.

“Many small and medium hotel owners have got notices to pay around Rs. 10-20 lakh in the form of property tax. When we went and met corporation officials, they explained that the earlier rate of 0.7% was revised by a hardship committee in 2004 to 1% by the unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi on semi-kaccha as well as tukri garter buildings, but was never implemented,” Arun Gupta, general secretary of Delhi Hotel Mahasangh, said.

According to Gupta, after the trifurcation on the corporation, the officials are going all out to increase revenue.

“The North Corporation officials have picked up this revised tax slab, which we never knew about. We are being targetted.

"Initially, they had sent notices with exorbitant amounts in the form of fines and interests. Last week, we met a tax department official, who said that the fines and interests might be waived but we will have to pay the hiked portion of the last nine years,” Gupta said, adding that the hotel owners were threatened that their “books would be closed”.