New SAS set to fleece YOU

New SAS set to fleece YOU

The congress alleges property tax will go up by 40% instead of 20% as govt says

Srikanth Hunasavadi. Bangalore

The Opposition Congress, on Thursday, demanded the immediate withdrawal of the proposed Self-Assessment Scheme (SAS) of property taxation, saying it is intended to loot the middle and lower-class people in the city.
The party also demanded the scrapping of the SAS and reverting to the previous property tax collection system.
Three former mayors of the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) said the system is hard on the common man. Under the SAS, the rich will pay 20% more tax, while the common man will have to shell out 40% more, they said.
The former mayors, all belonging to the Congress, said the additional tax will burden 11 lakh households and 70 lakh people in the city. These people together will have to pay Rs900 crore as tax, Ramachandrappa, PR Ramesh and J Huchhappa, said.
Terming the government stand on SAS as misleading, they said contradictions exist in the advertisements and the gazette notifications. The gazette spoke about more additions to the system, as opposed to the concessions the advertisements had promised.
The party will hold a series of demonstrations against the SAS at ward levels from January 12. It will seek legal advice on the same.
Striking a pro-poor stance, they said under the proposed SAS regime, those from economically-weaker sections will also have to start paying tax. The BBMP has termed several slums under the head of vacant sites. Though these slums have been exempted from paying the increased tax, those in them will have to pay some tax since vacant sites are included under F Zone.
Areas which previously fell under the F Zone, have been re-classified as D and E Zones under the SAS system, the leaders said. This re-classification will force the residents there to pay more tax.
Posh localities such as MG Road, Commercial Street, Brigade Road, Residency Road, Cubbon Road, Church Street, KG Road and Ali Askar Road have been in the A Zone since 2000. Those who own properties here will pay the same tax like before since they still come under the same zone.
However, Malleswaram, Jayanagar, Rajajinagar, Indiranagar and Thyagarajanagar, have been upgraded to A from D Zone, resulting in an increase of 20% in tax. Additionally, another 20% is also slapped on these areas as a result of zone change. The Congress leaders also alleged that zones have been changed in 80% of the localities, contrary to 30% to 40% promised in the advertisements.
The leaders alleged that the government was cheating the public by claiming that the cess was reduced to 22% under SAS system.
There were four types of cess: library 4%, beggary 3%, education 10% and health 15%, which altogether came to 32%. In 2003-04 the government stopped the collection of education cess but BBMP did not implement that order and continued collecting education cess. Now that the BBMP has implemented the government order, it is claiming that the cess has been reduced from 34% to 24%.