Amritsar Municipal Corporation asks mall to pay Rs 28.63-crore property tax

Charanjit Singh Teja

Amritsar, October 3

The Amritsar Municipal Corporation (MC) has sent a notice to Alpha One Mall (Mall of Amritsar) to deposit Rs 28.63 crore pending tax after a scrutiny of the property tax deposited by the mall authorities from 2014-15 to 2019-20.

Hardeep Singh, Joint Commissioner-cum-Competent Authority for Property Tax, MC, conducted the scrutiny of the property tax paid by the mall and found major difference between the actual tax and amount paid by the authorities.

The mall initially filed their property tax returns first time in 2013-14 and thereafter, continued to file the same up to 2019 by assessing themselves as a self-commercial and paid the property tax accordingly.

As per an Act, all returns filed by the property owners are subject to scrutiny by the MC. The returns filed by the mall were scrutinised by the staff of the MC and it was found that the authorities concerned had wrongly submitted their returns in self-occupied category whereas, the mall had been rented out to various tenants except some portion which was being used by them for office purpose. “The tax paid by the mall for the building has been deducted from the actual tax amount and it has been directed to pay Rs 28.63 crore,” said the MC Joint Commissioner.