M. Krishna Chaitanya is a working professional who bought his dream house in a gated community about two years ago. The project got occupancy certificate by the time of registration, and the property tax identification number (PTIN) was generated at the time of mutation itself by the sub-registrar’s office as per the rules.
Mr. Chaitanya, however, was oblivious to the PTIN generation, nor was he informed about the same by the registration department officials.
A month after registration, he happened to learn about the process of self assessment for property tax through some of his neighbours and approached the Mee Seva centre for the same. The Mee Seva executive entered his flat number in the column allotted for the door number, and generated another PTIN on the same flat, after charging Krishna Chaitanya the tax amount.
After paying the tax dutifully for two consecutive years, Chaitanya realised that the mutation certificate had a PTIN already. When he checked online, he was shocked to find that instead of a regular demand of ₹4,514 which he promptly paid availing the Early Bird scheme of the corporation on the other PTIN, his dues were shown as ₹17,528, including demand arrears of ₹10,290 and an interest of ₹2,541. The current year’s demand too was shown as ₹4,944, which is higher than that calculated in self assessment.
“The SMS I got from Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) for the Early Bird scheme too was for the PTIN generated through self assessment. I got no message for the PTIN generated during registration, hence I had no doubts,” Chaitanya said.
This incident, while reflecting everything that is wrong with the changed property tax regime of the GHMC, is not the sole instance where double PTINs were generated on the same property. The gated community that Chaitanya stayed at has multiple instances of the same, while outside too it is not uncommon.
“Two PTINs were generated on my property too, and I realised it late. I have multiple properties in the city, yet did not realise that PTIN was being generated during registration. Now, I’m doing rounds of the GHMC to get it rectified,” said P. Venkateshwar Rao (name changed), another property owner.
As per the official procedure, PTINs through self assessments would be generated without the door numbers through Mee Seva centres. After ground verification by the field officials, the deputy commissioners of the respective circles would assign door numbers following certain format.
However, on the ground, door numbers are being entered by Mee Seva operators as the column is not disabled for them. Field inspections have been seldom carried since the self assessment process initiated two to three years ago with the express aim of reducing manual intervention.
Property tax assessment responsibility was shifted from GHMC to the Registration department around the same time, with no campaign taken up to spread awareness about the same among the public. Absolute nonexistence of coordination between the two departments is complicating matters resulting in absence of SMS notifications on PTINs generated by the Registration department.
There is no transparency about calculation of property tax either, the formula of which is not mentioned on the demand note generated.
“We have come across news reports about GHMC resorting to seizure of properties citing tax arrears. What will be the plight of the prompt tax payers like us who are victims of double taxation?” questions Mr. Rao.
Officials from the GHMC did not respond to queries about double taxation.
