The Maharashtra government has announced some stringent rules to combat irregularities in the registration of properties.
The state administration has reportedly provided payment documents for the property tax or unoccupied land tax that are required for asset registration. Also, for agricultural land, the Maharashtra government has made it necessary to include the title owner in the "Adangal copy" ( revenue record that details the location, size, owner, obligations, tenancy etc)
The decision was made after it was found that the owners of vacant land were not paying their taxes on time. Now that the decision has been made, it is expected that it will help the state government bring in more money during the current fiscal year.
The step has been taken as it was found that the vacant land owners were not paying taxes on time.
Civic organisations and rural local governments have been pressuring the state government to disclose information about land sellers and buyers as soon as the registration is complete so that they can be located and charged with vacant land tax.
The government, however, is unable to distribute the information regarding the vacant land due to technical issues.
In metropolitan regions, the Maharashtra government had instituted a new property tax system that tied it to the asset's worth. It brought uniformity in tax imposition on properties based on market value set up by the registration department and replaced the outdated annual rental value (ARV) tax computation technique.
This reform was put in place to stop fraud when tax was levied by revenue wing officers in urban civic bodies.
Yet, the lack of a database has made it difficult for urban civic organisations to collect the Vacant Land Tax from property owners.
Earlier, the Vacant Land Tax was not mandatory for selling or purchasing the site in the past.
The government has mandated the submission of Vacant Land Tax for the registration of open plots in order to correct the issue.
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