The commercial consumers and owners of big villas get ready to pay more property tax and water tariffs in the fiscal year 2012-2013. The federal cabinet is supposed to take a proposal from the Capital Development Authority for increase in property tax and water tariffs of commercial consumers or residents of big, luxury homes.
A source revealed that the civic body has sent a proposal to the federal cabinet proposing 100% increase in the property tax of commercial buildings and almost 20% increase in the property tax of the residential buildings in the federal capital. It is also told that owners of five marlas plots will have exemption in the raise. However, the proposal seeks 100% increase in water charges for every type of consumers in the federal capital.
According to the officials, the property taxes and the water charges are lowest in Islamabad as compared to the other cities in Pakistan as these tariffs were raised 10 years back and since then there has been no revision in the tariff amount. However, the cost of water supply had increased many times in the last 10 years for the cities but the tariff was not revised for the federal capital residents.
According to an official, if the proposal will be accepted by the federal cabinet, the revenue generated by the property tax and the water charges would cross the figure of Rs 1.2 billion per year. The authority is currently on the track to collect revenue of Rs 698 million for the ongoing year and so far it had collected Rs 500 million and expected to collect the rest of Rs 160 million by the end of fiscal year 2011-2012. The property tax collected so far includes Rs 170 million form commercial properties and the rest of amount is collected from residential and government buildings.
The officials have also collected Rs 116 million under the head of water charges and the amount will also be doubled by end of June. The officials also revealed that Capital Development Authority (CDA) is facing serious financial crunch so the authority is finding ways to meet its daily expenses and to carry out the development projects.
