20000323

Increase in taxes

by HMC condemned

RECORDER REPORT

HYDERABAD: Grain and Seed Merchants Group Hyderabad (GSMGH) President Mohammad Ramzan Arain has taken strong exception to the proposed inordinate increase in fees and taxes by the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation.

In a communication addressed to the Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Administrator Arain has said that the taxation proposals by the corporation had been prepared in great haste and without proper survey and vetting and without taking into account the adverse conditions which the city and the people had faced during the last so many years.

Arain, who is also a former councillor of the corporation and deputy secretary general of JUP, said that the tax payers of Hyderabad were not in a position to pay increased taxes.

He pointed out that the increase in transfer fee would be simply rendered impracticable as the tax payers would not approach the HMC for the transfer of municipal properties but do it through mutual agreements.

He said that the proposed increase in rent of municipal properties was in flagrant violation of the Rent Control Ordinance 1979 which envisaged the rent increase of only ten percent after three years.

He said any arbitrary or unilateral increase in rent by the HMC would lead to litigation.

He said that experience had shown that any increase in taxes or fees had always proved counter-productive.

On behalf of the tax payers, Arain has urged the administrator HMC to hold a dialogue with the tax payers before effecting any increase in taxes and fees.