Mumbai Realtors Need to Pay 3 years' Property Tax in Advance

Bangalore: Three years' advance property tax! This is what real estate developers in Mumbai need to pay to launch a new project, which has to be paid to the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. This move will further boost the price for apartments in the city, reports Rahul Wadke of Business Line.

However, the reason behind this move is stated to be the overdue amount of 6000 crore, which housing society, builders and commercial establishments have to pay to the Corporation. According to Bhaskar Jadhav, Maharashtra Minister of State for Urban Development, this initiative has been taken to regulate the tax arrears.

Jadhav further added that, in most of the cases, builders’ stay numb in front of buyers regarding the unpaid property taxes, which buyers come to know only after the purchase and end up paying huge bulk of taxes to Corporation. Also, the State Government will come up with a new policy to deal with the matter of unpaid taxes. The minister is yet to give details about the specific date to pay the property taxes.

According to Housing expert, Chandrashekhar Prabhu, if the new tax policy comes into effect, the cost for property will go up in the city as builders will charge more from buyers.

Eknath Khadse, the Opposition Leader stated that, the developer will be held responsible for the payment of property taxes, until they sell the property to buyers. In many cases developers pull out money from new owners in the form of advance taxes which they do not pay to the Corporation. On this context, Khadse asked that “This is a fraudulent behaviour on the builders' part. Will the State Government recover the dues?” reports Business Line.

Kalidas Kolambakar, the Congress MLA said that the corporation should issue stop-work notices until the developers pay their respective taxes.