Nagpur: Nagpur West Mla Vikas Thakre has accused the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) illegally restored RS2.68.14 Crore in taxes from residents in more than four years.
He demanded that the money collected would be returned to residents as soon as possible and the tax was stopped.
Thakre, as well as the President of the Congress City Committee, has submitted a violation of the privilege of 26 civil heads of the state who accused that he was rejected by the right information.
He met CP Amitesh Kumar on Saturday to file a complaint and demanded NMC officials ordered for “cheating residents”.
Overcoming a press conference on Saturday, MLA said, “The State Government on August 2, 2017 has issued a notification that announces the grant of monthly goods and services (GST) to all city companies as a substitute to eliminate all types of taxes.
GST central guidelines and state notifications with the state clearly mention that the monthly GST grants will be given to provide basic facilities in the city.
“In accordance with Thakre, NMC received a grant RS3,851.51 GST from the center between July 2017 and June 2021, and” has not recovered RS2.648.14 Crore during the same period Through advertising, property, water, markets, and other types of taxes “.
He said 26 other city corporations did the same thing.
In June, Thakre said, he wrote to all 27 city companies that use provisions to recover taxes and income obtained.
“NMC and 25 other city companies do not provide appropriate information,” said Thakre and added that he then gathered information from various sources.
He threatened the judiciary whether NMC and other city companies did not return money.
In addition to GST guidelines and state notifications, Thakre said he had a letter from Ahmednagar Municipal Corporation “which stopped recovering advertising tax from August 1 after receiving my letter”, to prove his claim.
He quoted an example of the Amravati District Court which on July 17, 2018, has ordered Amravati Municipal Corporation to stop recovering advertising taxes.
“The High Court of Allahabad has directed Kanpur Municipal Corporation to restore advertising taxes to the agency on May 6, 2019.
Similarly, Pune and two city corporations stopped collecting advertising tax.
Similar decisions are expected from other cities corporations,” he said.
While mentioning government notifications on August 20, 2021, directed disciplinary actions against officials because they did not reply to the legislator, Thakre said that the NMC did not give a reply to six letters.
Legislators say the NMC actions attach and auction illegal properties because they do not have the right to restore property and other taxes.
“The same applies to actions against advertising agents,” said Thakre.
In accordance with NMC officials, the Civic Agency only recovers advertising costs and land rent from the agency.
There is no direction to stop the property, water, and other types of taxes, they said.
In this case, Thakre said he had a copy of many letters sent by NMC to the government stated that the advertising tax was being restored.
“NMC even produces increased income figures from advertisements to get an increase in GST grants.
It never gets more than RS5.5 Crore per year from advertisements.
NMC claims it is expected to get RS12 Crore in 2017-18,” he said.
MLC Abhijit Wanjari, Corporators Sanjay Mahakalkar, Manoj Sangole and the others were present at a press conference.