Nagpur: The cash-starved Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has frozen bank accounts of 3,907 traders from Nagpur city to recover Local Body Tax (LBT) dues collectively pegged at Rs 387.58 crore, according to a report in local Times of India daily.
According to the report, the NMC collected data of bank accounts submitted by the traders to the VAT Department. The civic body has approached Sales Tax and GST departments to share the bank account numbers of dealers whose details are not available with the NMC’s LBT Department,” the report said adding subsequently, over the past few months, the NMC approached different banks requesting freezing of these accounts. The NMC had given defaulters every opportunity available under rules to clear the dues.
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Notably, Maharashtra Government had scrapped LBT in August 2015, but pending assessment and recovery of dues wasn’t. The NMC has been struggling since then to recover the LBT from the defaulter traders.
According to data obtained from NMC, there are around 1,27,675 dealers in Corporation limits of whom only 55,553 have submitted mandatory returns. After scrutiny of documents obtained from the Sales Tax Department and files received through chartered accountants, the NMC had issued assessment orders against 45,456 files of traders and also a demand of Rs 3,134 crore as LBT was generated. Of them, only 37,309 cleared LBT which comes to around Rs 39.73 crore.
After this, total pending LBT cases came to 8,147. Of them, 3,517 traders have either filed an appeal or knocked the court’s door. The outstanding LBT from these traders comes to around Rs 1,036 crore. Besides this, the NMC has also initiated the process to seize properties of 1,070 traders who have defaulted Rs 252.24 crore LBT by using revenue recovery certificates, said the TOI report.
The report further said that it also came to fore that these 1,070 traders had not submitted bank details and their outstanding dues had reached Rs 252 crore. Now, the department has submitted RRCs (revenue recovery certificates) to all Assistant Municipal Commissioners to go ahead with the seizure and auction of properties to recover the dues.
