Secunderabad: Tax hike likely for commercial properties on cantt main roads

SECUNDERABAD: The Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) on Monday took up triennial revision of property tax for 2018-2021 for both commercial and domestic properties in its jurisdiction.
This time, however, commercial property owners are likely to see a hike in property tax rates for properties located on main roads.
According to SCB records, there are 36,000 properties, including commercial and residential, in cantonment areas.Of these, 8,000 to 10,000 are shops and businesses that have been operating for more than three decades.
The tax for each commercial property has been fixed at Rs 4 per sqft and Rs 12 per sqft. “The area of the property, its location, plinth area and number of floors will be assessed,” SCB deputy chief executive officer Vijay Kumar Balan Nair told TOI. “We are calculating the percentage of the property tax in the same way as Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC),” he added.
Regarding residential properties, the deputy CEO said that the tax for each property has been fixed between Rs 1.20 and Rs 1.80 per sqft, adding that a separate price will be charged for structures with asbestos sheets as roof. “The revision will be carried out as per the self-assessment proforma that was submitted by the respective property owners,” he said.
The property tax will be levied separately for partly-commercial, commercial and highly-commercial properties. “Property owners can raise objections over the increase in property tax rates, but we will reduce the tax rate only after analysing each property owner’s request,” said a tax department official.
However, the official admitted that the process of calculating the property tax in the cantonment area was higher compared to that of the GHMC.
The last triennial revision was carried out between 2015-18, which fetched the board a revenue of nearly Rs 60 crore. This time around, the fund-starved SCB is hoping to get revenue of Rs 100 crore.