Date:07/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/07/stories/2009010760070400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

BBMP’s online tax calculator is a hit

Staff Reporter

It does not have separate category for apartments
The calculator can be operated only through Internet Explorer

Bangalore: Thousands of property owners of the country’s IT capital on Tuesday logged on to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike’s website www.bmponline.org in their effort to know the tax that they have to pay.

The online property tax calculator that was uploaded on Monday evening has received about 7,000 hits within 24 hours.

Meanwhile, many property owners living in apartments, who called The Hindu, said that the online calculator did not provide a separate category for apartments.

C.R. Sreenivasan of BTM Layout and others pointed out that it was not clear in the draft notification on Unit Area Value (UAV) that how the area of an individual apartment (like the built up area used in case of independent houses) should be considered.

Some callers also pointed out that they could not use the calculator as it was hanging.

However, the BBMP officials clarified that area of the apartment mentioned in the sale deed should be taken for calculation of property tax. The apartment owners can send their difficulties on computation of tax and suggestions to the Commissioner, the officials said.

The officials said that the BBMP’s website containing online property tax calculator could be operated only through Internet Explorer and not any other browsers. They said that those who found it difficult to assess the online tax calculator might have used browsers other than Internet Explorer.