Like many other government departments, Mysore City Corporation too has a website. It has a property tax calculator which is supposed to calculate the property tax on your property when you provide it with the details of your property. We find it so user-unfriendly and inaccurate that it is virtually useless. Here are some its problems.
1. A main ingredient of the property tax calculation is the cost of the land. For determining the cost of the land, the city has been divided into hundreds of divisions and the market value of a square foot of land in each of these divisions has been fixed by the district registrar. When you feed the location of your property, the calculator refers to this table of land values and determines the cost of the land.
But the trouble is, it is almost impossible to feed the location of your property to the calculator. The way it is set up, you first feed the ward number and the calculator gives the option of 3-4 blocks. You choose the right block and the calculator shows you all the streets that are in that ward and block and you pick the correct street. This should fix the division into which your property falls.
But the software has mixed up wards, blocks and streets and as a result, if you enter your ward number, the calculator will not display your street name in any of the blocks. Even if you check all ward numbers and all block numbers you might not find your street, because the street names are given as just 2nd Cross or 3rd Main and you can not be sure if it is 3rd Main, V.V. Puram or 3rd Main, Gokulam. To find the land value for my home which is on 6th Cross, V.V.Puram, Ward No. 32, I have to select Ward No. 38, Block No. 2 and 2nd Main which is nowhere near my real address! This I found out after calling the computer section of MCC.
2. In the present property tax system, the value of the property is the value of the building plus the cost of the land covered by the building (the cost of the land around the building is excluded). In the calculator, the cost of the land under each floor is included separately inflating the cost of the land. So the calculator comes out with a much higher figure than the correct amount of property tax.
3. The calculator does several things which it does not explain and so one is left with the uncomfortable impression that it is increasing your tax liability. Some examples are:
i) When it adds the tax on the land and the tax on the building, the sum is 15% higher than it should be. No explanation is given.
ii) According to the calculator, the cost of construction per sq.ft. of an RCC-marble-teak building is Rs. 340 if it is the ground floor, but Rs. 540 if it is on the first floor! Similarly, the cost of construction per sq.ft. of an RCC-mosaic-teak building is Rs. 580 if it is the ground floor, but Rs. 520 if it is on the first floor. Such mistakes make all the calculations suspect.
4. All the text on the calculator is in English while all the dropdown menus are in Kannada! So you need to know both languages to run it. Why MCC is not offering calculators purely in Kannada and purely in English is not known.
5. The calculator (and in fact all MCC records of properties) measures property dimensions in feet. It is amazing that even after 50 years of banning the British units of measurement and adopting metric units, MCC is still not using metres as units! The Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1956 made the metre the official unit of length in India. The government and the public were given a grace period of 6 years to convert to the metric system. After 1-4-1962, it is illegal to use non-metric units such as feet. In fact, Sec. 80 of the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 (which replaced the 1956 Act) mandates that non-metric measures should not even be stated in any enactment, notification, rule or order of the government.
6.The calculator can only calculates tax for the current year. People who have not paid last year's tax can not use the calculator since it does not give a printout of last year's tax.
On the whole, the calculator seems very badly designed with no supervision. It appears quite unreliable. MGP had raised many of these issues with MCC three years ago. But MCC has done nothing. If one examines the calculator carefully, it is certain that many more problems will surface. It is better if MCC shuts the calculator off.
Prof. B.S. Shankara
1. A main ingredient of the property tax calculation is the cost of the land. For determining the cost of the land, the city has been divided into hundreds of divisions and the market value of a square foot of land in each of these divisions has been fixed by the district registrar. When you feed the location of your property, the calculator refers to this table of land values and determines the cost of the land.
But the trouble is, it is almost impossible to feed the location of your property to the calculator. The way it is set up, you first feed the ward number and the calculator gives the option of 3-4 blocks. You choose the right block and the calculator shows you all the streets that are in that ward and block and you pick the correct street. This should fix the division into which your property falls.
But the software has mixed up wards, blocks and streets and as a result, if you enter your ward number, the calculator will not display your street name in any of the blocks. Even if you check all ward numbers and all block numbers you might not find your street, because the street names are given as just 2nd Cross or 3rd Main and you can not be sure if it is 3rd Main, V.V. Puram or 3rd Main, Gokulam. To find the land value for my home which is on 6th Cross, V.V.Puram, Ward No. 32, I have to select Ward No. 38, Block No. 2 and 2nd Main which is nowhere near my real address! This I found out after calling the computer section of MCC.
2. In the present property tax system, the value of the property is the value of the building plus the cost of the land covered by the building (the cost of the land around the building is excluded). In the calculator, the cost of the land under each floor is included separately inflating the cost of the land. So the calculator comes out with a much higher figure than the correct amount of property tax.
3. The calculator does several things which it does not explain and so one is left with the uncomfortable impression that it is increasing your tax liability. Some examples are:
i) When it adds the tax on the land and the tax on the building, the sum is 15% higher than it should be. No explanation is given.
ii) According to the calculator, the cost of construction per sq.ft. of an RCC-marble-teak building is Rs. 340 if it is the ground floor, but Rs. 540 if it is on the first floor! Similarly, the cost of construction per sq.ft. of an RCC-mosaic-teak building is Rs. 580 if it is the ground floor, but Rs. 520 if it is on the first floor. Such mistakes make all the calculations suspect.
4. All the text on the calculator is in English while all the dropdown menus are in Kannada! So you need to know both languages to run it. Why MCC is not offering calculators purely in Kannada and purely in English is not known.
5. The calculator (and in fact all MCC records of properties) measures property dimensions in feet. It is amazing that even after 50 years of banning the British units of measurement and adopting metric units, MCC is still not using metres as units! The Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1956 made the metre the official unit of length in India. The government and the public were given a grace period of 6 years to convert to the metric system. After 1-4-1962, it is illegal to use non-metric units such as feet. In fact, Sec. 80 of the Standards of Weights and Measures Act, 1976 (which replaced the 1956 Act) mandates that non-metric measures should not even be stated in any enactment, notification, rule or order of the government.
6.The calculator can only calculates tax for the current year. People who have not paid last year's tax can not use the calculator since it does not give a printout of last year's tax.
On the whole, the calculator seems very badly designed with no supervision. It appears quite unreliable. MGP had raised many of these issues with MCC three years ago. But MCC has done nothing. If one examines the calculator carefully, it is certain that many more problems will surface. It is better if MCC shuts the calculator off.
Prof. B.S. Shankara