Mysore City Corporation is now sending Form C to all the property owners in Mysore. This form contains all the data (site area, built area, type of construction, age of building, whether building is self-occupied, etc.) which determine the property tax of the property. MCC is asking the property owners to verify the data and submit corrections if any, within a week. Verified data will then form the MCC property tax database and will likely be put on the MCC website and available for public scrutiny.
Based on my Form C and the forms of my friends, I wish to point out the following problems:
1. The information is printed in very small letters which is very difficult to read even for ordinary people, let alone the elderly.
2. The property owner is supposed to write the correct information by the side of any wrong information that is on the form. But there is no space for entering the correct information.
3. When there is no space for relevant information, much space is wasted on irrelevant information such as the new numbers that are being given to the property and the street, and the tax assessment for the last 8 years.
4. The inaccuracy of these forms is astounding. In my Form C, just about every information (name, address, site dimensions, built area, type of construction, age of building, tax assessed for previous years, etc.) that has been printed is wrong.
5. MCC would have done much better if it had given us blank forms and asked us to fill the details. What we write would then have been more legible.
6.The form is carelessly printed. In the space for site dimension, there are two boxes. One is titled length but the other one which should be breadth is not titled at all. At the bottom of the form, it lists 7 columns which can be corrected. But the body of the form does not name columns 1-6 at all!
7. There seems to be absolutely no quality control over the data entry operators. If they can not copy the data correctly from our previous tax forms, what is the guarantee that the corrections we are submitting now will be entered correctly? I am afraid that this will be an action replay of the voter ID fiasco, in which the correctness of the data on the voter ID card did not improve even after several revisions. Computerization will streamline tax system and improve tax collection only if correct data is entered. The acronym GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) is the basis of computerized data management. If wrong data is fed to computers, they will produce wrong tax demands and cause heartburn to the public.
In a related matter, having repeatedly faced the problem of ledger non-entry when I paid my property tax by cash or by cheque, I switched over to payment through e-mail, thinking that my problems would finally be solved by computers. But to my surprise, I found out that my e-payment has also been not entered into the ledger.
Based on my Form C and the forms of my friends, I wish to point out the following problems:
1. The information is printed in very small letters which is very difficult to read even for ordinary people, let alone the elderly.
2. The property owner is supposed to write the correct information by the side of any wrong information that is on the form. But there is no space for entering the correct information.
3. When there is no space for relevant information, much space is wasted on irrelevant information such as the new numbers that are being given to the property and the street, and the tax assessment for the last 8 years.
4. The inaccuracy of these forms is astounding. In my Form C, just about every information (name, address, site dimensions, built area, type of construction, age of building, tax assessed for previous years, etc.) that has been printed is wrong.
5. MCC would have done much better if it had given us blank forms and asked us to fill the details. What we write would then have been more legible.
6.The form is carelessly printed. In the space for site dimension, there are two boxes. One is titled length but the other one which should be breadth is not titled at all. At the bottom of the form, it lists 7 columns which can be corrected. But the body of the form does not name columns 1-6 at all!
7. There seems to be absolutely no quality control over the data entry operators. If they can not copy the data correctly from our previous tax forms, what is the guarantee that the corrections we are submitting now will be entered correctly? I am afraid that this will be an action replay of the voter ID fiasco, in which the correctness of the data on the voter ID card did not improve even after several revisions. Computerization will streamline tax system and improve tax collection only if correct data is entered. The acronym GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) is the basis of computerized data management. If wrong data is fed to computers, they will produce wrong tax demands and cause heartburn to the public.
In a related matter, having repeatedly faced the problem of ledger non-entry when I paid my property tax by cash or by cheque, I switched over to payment through e-mail, thinking that my problems would finally be solved by computers. But to my surprise, I found out that my e-payment has also been not entered into the ledger.
G.L.Nagaraj Urs, Mysore Grahakara Parishat