The have been a lot of changes in the ways of paying house tax in India. While the core rules remain the same, there has been a good measure of rationalization in order to modernize the tax system. And a majority of these revolutionary initiatives are being taken at the local rather than the central level, which usually does not happen in India.
In the city of Bangalore the state government has introduced the capital valuation system, for ease of computation and payment of house taxes. Paying house tax is even easier in the capital city Delhi because the local municipal corporation has created a website for all people willing to pay tax online. And if you think that paying tax online is difficult, you may be mistaken!
This is because the Delhi municipal corporation website has a dedicated property tax information system which makes it easy for anyone to understand how to compute tax on your house, file the same online, fill return forms and finally pay tax online.
Other than this there are quite a few websites in India which have house tax forms and explain the entire process to you in detail.
The Nagpur municipal corporation is the first local body in India to have a created an online database of all the five hundred thousand properties within its jurisdiction. This also enables easy tax payment by all the registered property owners.
Despite these major changes in the system of house tax payment in India in some of the cities and states, the basis of tax computation and payment remains the same.
Calculation of House Tax
The entire Indian house tax model is based on this principle. The local municipal corporation collects the tax from you as a representative of the government of the state.
House tax is computed by local municipal authorities under whose jurisdiction your property lies. House tax is one of the largest sources of revenue for the state governments of India.
The money that enters their coffers via the tax on houses, is then used to improve the local infrastructure by building new roads, sewer lines, parks, playgrounds, libraries and many other developmental activities. This in turn, improves the quality of life for al residents who pay tax.
As you know, paying house tax is an annual process, wherein the amount you pay depends on the size of your property and the locality. If you have a large house in a metropolitan area you will be paying a larger amount of tax than if you own a house of the same size in a semi-urban or suburban area. Simple logic isn’t it?