After backlash from property owners, BBMP announces to auto-populate zonal classification

The zones from A to F have different rates based on the occupancy (own/tenant) and also for various categories under usage. Last year, the BBMP had served notices to 78,500 property owners stating mismatches in the tax zone classification. The notices claimed that the tax zone reclassification was done in 2016-17 and the owners had to pay penalties for not updating the records before paying the tax under SAS. The owners argued that they had been paying the property tax diligently.

BBMP Special Commissioner (Revenue) Dr Deepal R L said, “Since the scheme of taxation was self-assessment, it was the taxpayers’ obligation to declare the property tax under SAS. During the declaration, there have been instances of wrong zonal classification, which has led to leakage of tax revenues for BBMP. Further, this option of selecting the zone was found to be liable to misuse. In view of the above, it was decided to auto-populate and freeze the zone based on the street codes in a scientific way because of which there would be better revenue collections and no scope for misuse. Zonal classification is according to the gazette notifications published during SAS-2008 and SAS-2016.”

In a statement, the special commissioner further said, “Zonal classification will be auto populated on the basis of streets/roads and selection of zones will be henceforth disabled for either taxpayers or department officials. Properties which wrongly declared the zone will be automatically redirected to FORM-V for calculation of tax. As usual, any change related to occupancy, usage, and addition or deletion in structure will be done through FORM-V. Even for new properties created by assistant revenue officials, zonal classification will be auto-populated. In case there is no change in zone, occupancy, usage etc the property tax would remain the same and the same would be done through Form-IV.”