People fret over BBMP’s inflated tax challans

BENGALURU: Rame Gowda, a businessman received the shock of his life when he received a challan from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) specifying the property tax he had to pay this year as Rs 1,10,445. The property in question was the same 3,500 square feet house in Chickpet for which he had paid a tax of Rs 15,740 last year.

For the last four days, Gowda has been frequenting the BBMP office trying to make the officials understand that a blunder has been committed in the assessment but to no avail. “I was told that it is a technical problem in their system,” he said.

Madhav Nagar resident Prakash Chand Tirgal is determined not to pay his tax this year as he ended up paying the tax twice last year for his property measuring 600 square feet. “I paid Rs 24,385 using a debit card at a BBMP office and the transaction failed. I was told to swipe my card again. When I received my bank statement, I understood that both transactions were successful,” he said.

Having been unsuccessful in getting the reimbursement yet, he has visited the BBMP office four times in a bid to make them adjust the payment with this year.

Asked about the issues, M K Gunashekar, Taxation and Finance Committee Chairman, BBMP said, “There was a software issue and it has been fixed now. Some property owners enter the wrong zone online when they want to find the tax details. When the wrong zone is entered, the tax amount will definitely show a variance over that of the previous year.”