RAWALPINDI, Sept 17: The Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) has offered 15 per cent rebate to its property tax-payers if they deposit their taxes till September 30, official sources told Dawn.

The special incentive has been offered to the cantonment residents so that they pay their house taxes in time. Those who fail to deposit taxes in the given time, will not be entitled to the special rebate offer.

The cantonment board has started issuing notices to its property tax payers — both commercial and residential — numbering about 80,000. Out of the total, about 27,000 are commercial units, whereas the remaining 53,000 are residential, the sources said.

According to the sources, the house tax is supposed to be paid by every residential and commercial tax-payer in advance, but the residents are always reluctant to pay in time. Only about 30 to 40 per cent people — mostly the low-salaried class — pay in advance to get the benefit of the 15 per cent rebate. The remaining, specially the big landlords and businessmen, never pay their taxes in time and, when forced by the civic body, pay it only after the assessment year is over and a recovery campaign is launched.

On the other hand, the implementation of the new tax formula by the cantonment board has resulted in commotion among the cantonment residents, who have termed the mani-fold increase in property tax as totally unwarranted. The board, on the other hand, calls it rationalization.

“There might be anomalies in the rationalization. There might be mistakes in the bills we have sent to the residents. But we have an open-door policy and people who think they have been overtaxed or given wrong bills can approach us or send their proposals to us and they will be given every opportunity to clarify their position”, the RCB chief executive officer, Kh Iftikhar Mir, said.

He said the rationalization process had been initiated to remove disparities and discrepancies in the taxation system.

The system, he said, was being computerized and all records in this regard would be put on the Web so that the people could check their tax details while sitting at home.