Huge rush to avail property tax rebate

NEW DELHI: With the deadline for filing property tax returns (PTR) only a day away, property owners eager to avail the early payment rebate of

15% queued up from 9am at various MCD tax collection centres in the city. Despite the option of filing returns online, many still opted to submit the PTR forms manually. Some said they found the online procedure slow.

At the Lajpat Nagar centre, the queue was particularly long. Said Kavita Sharma, a resident of Sarita Vihar, " I don't have much faith on online transactions. We get a receipt immediately this way.''

Another taxpayer, K P Singh, added,"The online servers are not working properly and filing online is more expensive since we have to pay an additional Rs 50. I'm paying my taxes now because I did not find the time earlier.'' Some also said that despite filing their returns last year, the payment hadn't been updated online and still showed as arrears."I filed my returns by going to the centre. But this year, when I tried to pay it online, it showed as arrears. Why should I pay the tax twice?'' asked a tax payer who did not want to be named.

However, MCD officials said arrears were showing only in those cases where the cheques had not been realised before the due date or there had been a refund. The officials admitted that the online system may have been slow over the last three days because of the massive rush of people who waited till the last day to file returns.

"For the last three days the online system is slow because it's being hit 3500 times per minute, peak time being 10am to 4pm,'' said a senior official.

Meanwhile, MCD made provisions for property tax collection at all its 12 zonal offices and the headquarter in Lajpat Nagar. The centres will be open from 9am to 9pm on Tuesday to help tax payers get their 15% rebate on the last day. And taxpayers can pay online till midnight for the same rebate.

MCD's director press information, Deep Mathur said, "In order to facilitate property owners and tax payers we have kept all our property tax collection centres open from from 9am to 9pm on Tuesday so that they can avail the 15% rebate even on the last day.''