25 officials arrested over inflated tax notices

LAHORE:

Twenty-five Excise and Taxation (E&T) Department officials have been arrested and cases registered against them for issuing inflated property tax notices, The Express Tribune learnt on Sunday.

They include an assistant taxation officer and a clerk.

The chief minister had taken notice of the complaints in this regard a month ago. The overbilling has been established in Lahore, Rawalpindi, Toba Tek Singh, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Gujrat and Sheikhupura.

The excise office is currently making a log of property owners who have been overbilled.

They said all E&T directors had been requested last month to inform the director general office about the officers involved in the overbilling. They said the crackdown on the officials accused of mismanagement had started on November 27. They said the officials had sent property tax with a 100 per cent increase in June 2013 whereas the government had approved only a raise of 50 per cent.

On July 1 last year, the department had started a province-wide survey to evaluate property value.

The three-month survey was part of the department’s ‘reassessment operation 2013-14’. Not only the prevailing rents and property value were ascertained during the survey but re-categorisation of several colonies across the province was also carried out.

Following the survey, E&T officials had proposed a substantial increase in the property tax in line with raise in house rents. They said the proposal was not approved.

The E&T secretary and the headquarters director were not available for comment.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2014.