People decry receiving property tax bills with 10-year arrears

It is a conspiracy against Punjab govt, says Parliamentary Secretary for Revenue Adnan Chaudhry

RAWALPINDI: In an interesting move, the Rawalpindi Excise, Taxation Department has asked the residential and commercial property owners to clear their property tax arrears for the past 10 years within a month.

The department has issued property tax bills which include outstanding taxes along with a fine for up to past 13 years, including taxes which the department did not collect during the tenure of the previous government. The residents seem troubled after being asked to pay millions of rupees within a month and they have challenged these bills in the Lahore High Court Rawalpindi bench.

Further, the lawmakers too have declared sending these bills a conspiracy against the provincial government and approached the Chief Minister Usman Buzdar in this regard.

Addressing the complaints made by Punjab Parliamentary Secretary Revenue Adnan Chaudhry and MPA Haji Amjad Mehmood, the chief minister has stopped the department from taking action on non-payment of the arrears as well as sought clarification from it. The property owners of 24 village tehsils that have been merged in the urban areas under the new local government system have also received the tax bills.

Buildings on highways and motorways to pay property tax

In this regard, Adnan Chaudhry confirmed the issuance of the bills when The Express Tribune contacted him on Saturday. He termed the action as the department’s ‘conspiracy’ against the government. Chaudhry asked: “why the tax was not collected on its due time, and after a decade, a tax bomb was dropped on people suddenly.”

Chaudhry said that the excise officers who did not collect tax at the time of the PML-N regime have reopened the cases now to defame the PTI government. He asserted that the government would identify the responsible officers and take action against them.

Meanwhile, the owners having properties of up to five-marlas have also been instructed to pay off their outstanding arrears whereas as per law, they have been exempted from property tax in the past.

In this regard, the excise department officials were of the view that the five-marla plot owners have been exempted from paying property tax, however, they would have to pay the back tax for the period before the exemption. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2020.