Karnataka yet to Setup a Functional Property Tax board

Karnataka Government is still yet to establish a fully fledged property tax board, which would eventually help in the transparency over fixing tax slabs for commercial, residential and other establishments. The setup time has already  seen a 2 years of wait.

The Karnataka legislature had taken initiative in setting up the board way back in 2011 and had also passed a bill. Which comprised of tax officials and field experts with main focus over periodically revising the tax slabs depending on nature of the property, zoning regulations and inviting public objections.  Been a very important move the developments just remained on papers and has not materialised yet.


How would the board Help ?

• Board would ensure transparency over fixing tax slabs for commercial, residential and other establishments.
• Citizens would have active participation over taxation slabs and periodic revision of tax slabs.
• Properties and rates would come under scientific enumeration.
• Suggestion for suitable basis for capital valuation of properties.
• Central grants could be released on performance metrics.

More grants could rack in via Property tax board:

A status update about the board by the development department officials referred " Implementation is yet to be achieved though the law is already been conceived."

Civic Expert Dr A K Pani added, reviewing the property tax system and suggesting suitable basis  for capital valuation of properties or the annual taxable value for the properties with added benefits of scientific enumeration of the properties and rates are the advantages which could be ripped through the constitution of the board.

The setting up of the board would also open access of getting additional grants for Karnataka from the central government. This is been facilitated through the directive released by the 13th Finance commission to set up state-level property tax boards to get performance grant to urban local bodies.

Property tax boards across 18 states in the country are established and are functioning effectively, and melancholy Karnataka has not tagged itself in the list.