New civic drive likely in Cooch Behar

 

COOCH BEHAR, July 12: Cooch Behar Municipality (CBM) is likely to launch a new drive against landlords in this town who are renting out their houses without paying the requisite taxes thereon. It is not ready to afford the luxury by allowing the offenders not to pay the taxes when the state government is urging the civic bodies to earn funds from its own resources, CBM sources said.

 

It is an open secret in this town that a section of house-owners are earning a huge sum of money by renting out rooms or houses without furnishing any information to the civic body. As a result the civic body is losing yearly revenue to the tune of lakhs of Rupees that it deserves as taxes from the rent amounts. The 'dishonest' house-owners and their tenants reportedly enter into an understanding to evade the taxes and to lower the rent amounts. Following such agreements the tenants demand no receipts from the landlords and the house-owners have to pay no taxes to the civic body. But the dark side of such understanding is that the authorities concerned receive no information about the tenants and their actual identities. There is no record about such unrecorded tenants to the law enforcing agencies or intelligence agencies. It is not impossible for the members of outlawed outfits to take shelter in this town as unrecorded tenants to carry on their subversive activities, a senior citizen opined.

 

On the otherhand the civic body have to bear the burden of such 'illegal guests' because it have to offer the same civic services what it extends to the law abiding taxpayer citizens. It is believed that after completion of the ongoing eviction drive against the illegal encroachers the civic body may launch another massive drive in Cooch Behar town against the unholy nexus of landlords and tenants to inflate the funds of its exchequer.

 

Cooch Behar Municipality sources said they are collecting information and data on rented houses. The sources admitted that the civic body is being deprived of a huge sum of revenue because many house owners submit incorrect or false report to the authority. There is also a tendency among a section of house-owners to pay less taxes even evade taxes. In a bid to streamline the situation the civic body already started a survey to gather data on rented houses and the rate of rent the house-owners collect per month from the tenants, the CBM sources added. []