Online property tax payments take off

CHENNAI : One particular service provided by the Chennai Corporation through its website has been growing by leaps and bounds since its introduction in 2008. The number of citizens paying their property taxes online has gone up by a whopping 16 times in the last four years.Corporation officials express hope that more people will use the payment gateway on the website to pay property taxes. And a call for that might be in order, considering the number of property tax assessees has grown from 6.7 lakh to 10.7 lakh after the recent expansion of the Corporation’s limits.Given the number of assessees across the city, only a mere 4.7 per cent use the website to pay property tax. “More people should make use of the benefits of making payments online. They do not have to come to the headquarters or to a zonal office and wait in a queue. We expect more people to make use of this facility now, especially those in the newly expanded areas, so that they don’t have to cover great distances to get their work done,” says a Corporation official.The website has provisions to carry out most of the processes involved in the assessment, declaration and payment of property tax.Online payment of property tax clocked in at 1,890 in the first year of its introduction and grew to over 31,000 in 2011. Close to 22,500 people have already paid their property tax online so far this year.Promoting online payments could well be the pocket ace the Corporation holds, in line with the commitment made by Chennai Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy to the Corporation Council in April that the civic body would bring more transparency to the assessment of property tax and make it easier for the city’s residents to pay their taxes.