Mangaluru : The Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) council in its meeting on Wednesday, January 31, unanimously resolved to increase property tax by 3% effective from 2024-25.

An agenda on the matter tabled in the council said the Karnataka Municipal Corporations (Amendment) Ordinance, 2021, amended property tax-related sections 108 and 109, and section 109-A of the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976. Accordingly, property tax will have to be revised every year according to the prevailing guidance value. If the guidance value is not revised, property tax will have to be increased by 3% every year. The government has instructed that if the local bodies do not take steps to increase their revenue sources from time to time, the government will withhold the State Finance Commission grants due to them.

In 2023, the corporation revised the property tax applicable for 2023-24 by 0.75% of the capital value of the property, by keeping it (0.75%) as a standard rate of revision for all properties.

This resulted in over 30% hike in the tax payable by some property owners. Some who paid the advance tax for 2023-24 complained about the steep hike in the tax. Councillors across party lines raised their concern over the same in the February 2023 meeting of the corporation council. Later, the corporation reviewed and re-revised the tax structure within the guidelines issued by the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA).

Hence, the tax was re-revised for residential and non-commercial properties in the range of 0.2% to 1.5% of the capital value of the property, scientifically, as allowed by the guidelines. The re-revision was incorporated on the online portal of the corporation with effect from March 21, 2023.

Whip in the council and former Mayor Premananda Shetty went on record at a press conference on March 28, 2023, that before incorporating the re-revision, owners of 32,407 properties had paid the advance tax for 2023-24. The tax thus collected stood at ₹17.25 crore. The corporation would pass on the benefit of re-revision to those taxpayers while paying the tax for 2024-25. The excess amount paid by them would be readjusted in the tax for 2024-25. Those taxpayers would be informed about the revision through SMS, he had said.