Pune: What was a normal morning at Abbas Ebrahim Unwala’s Nafis Collections garment shop at Fatimanagar changed one fine day when a group of seven Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) officials showed up and threatened to seal the shop for non-payment of property tax bill on time.

But Unwala has a reason for not being prompt in paying the property tax bill. “I received the bill after six years. PMC ought to issue the bills every year. Paying up six years’ bill at a time is hard on payers. Moreover, times are bad. The markets are down and almost everyone is facing the heat of economic slowdown,” he complains.

After receiving incomplete and improper property tax due details, Unwala has been waging a lone battle against PMC’s broken tax collecting system. He has demanded the civic body to furnish yearwise details of various taxes. “Until then I have requested the PMC not to remit Rs 51,637 cheque (No. 863858) drawn on the Cosmos Cooperative Bank Limited dated March 31, 2009. I have instructed the bank authorities not to honour the cheque. But I assume that PMC has withdrawn the cheque.”

Though the present regime of the Corporation has been trying hard to project itself as public-friendly announcing various development schemes such as laying of roads and desilting of waterways, little seems to have been done on taxation system.
Unwala complains that the PMC is adopting an unethical and unhealthy methods to collect taxes.

“How can a group of seven men barge into my shop and misbehave with lady employees threatening them of sealing the shop for delayed payment. This is something like ‘Ultaa Chor Kotwal Ko Daate’. Entire blame falls on PMC for issuing a six years bill at a time. It should furnish me the details of when the property was assessed; why time-to-time bill details were not issued; why yearwise details were issued and why unethical means are adopted to collect taxes,” Unwala says.

In a government of the people, by the people and for the people, it is the people who are being stretched beyond their limits, while the elected representatives and the officials bask under “administrative powers” showing no interest in streamlining the taxation system which has been pending for long. “If the taxpayer has to run from pillar to post to pay his taxes, what will the quality of services be?” questions Vivek Nair, a resident of Fatimanagar.

PMC should evolve a system wherein property owners in the city are satisfied with the taxation. Paying taxes now has become painfully arduous, says Sidhant Sanas, a Wanavdi resident.