KARACHI: The Sindh government has brought residential, commercial and industrial properties in four more areas of the metropolis under the tax net and sent challans to owners.

Blocks of Surjani Town, Gadap (including areas adjacent to Gulshan-i-Maymar, Ahsanabad, parts of Bin Qasim and Hawkesbay housing colonies are the four new areas where the provincial government had imposed property tax from the current financial year.

Previously, these areas were considered as underdeveloped and, therefore, the property tax was not enforced there.

Declaring new rating areas, a notification issued by the Sindh government made owners of the property units in these areas liable to pay tax at the prevalent rate.

A rating area is defined under the law as area/areas that lie within the boundaries of a municipal corporation, municipal committee, cantonment board, town committee or any other authority not being a district council legally entitled to or entrusted by the government with the control or management of a municipal or local fund.

The property tax is at present collected at the rate of 25 per cent of the annual rental value (ARV) of units, which depends on the location of the areas.

Giving details of the new tax measures, Sindh Excise and Taxation Director General Shoaib Siddiqui said that the new rating areas had been declared after 15 years, as the last property survey was carried out in 2001.

He said that tax challans were being issued to the owners of property units in the new rating areas.

Meanwhile, the government has planned a new property survey with the assistance of the World Bank.

Officials said that the new survey would begin from Sukkur this year. The survey would also cover businesses to bring them under the professional tax net.

Owners of subleased portions to be taxed

Director-Property Tax Akhtar Azad said that the excise and taxation department evolved a new formula to tax owners of portions subleased from a single unit and sold to different persons.

Under the new formula, the owners of all portions of a single unit would be charged with property tax separately, he added.

He further said that since this was a new trend in property transactions the department was prompted to take new measures to prevent the revenue loss.

He hoped if the trend of selling portions of a single unit gained momentum the revenue from property tax would also be increased.

Mr Azad claimed that the property tax enforcement and assessment system had been fully computerised and electronic challans were being issued to the owners since August this year.

The computerisation of tax procedures had eliminated chances of corruption, which he said was rampant in the manual system.

To a question, he said that a 5pc tax rebate was allowed to good taxpayers if they cleared their tax bill in the first quarter of an assessment year.

However, a penalty would be imposed on tax defaulters at the rate of 10pc of the total tax amount.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2016