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Have you paid up?
MPSJ gets tough with assessment tax defaulters
By: by Meena L. Ramadas (May 17, 2010) |
| MPSJ personnel seize a sofa from a furniture shop in Taman Puchong Prima. |
MPSJ Revenue director Sharifah Rohaida Abd Rahman said assessment tax is overdue on 30% of residential properties in the muni-cipality, which equates to about RM7 million.
"The total assessment tax from residential properties is approximately RM23 million a year," she said after an MPSJ operation to collect the overdue payments.
"We have been focusing so much on acq-uiring overdue fees from commercial prop-erties which have higher assessment tax, to the extent that residential property defaulters have been overlooked."
Sharifah said some home owners have not paid assessment tax for over 10 years.
She said the assessment rate for residential properties is 5% of the value of the property, vacant land: 2% of the value, and commercial properties 6% of the market value or rental income.
Tax is payable twice a year in January and July, and owners are given two months to settle the payments.
Sharifah said the council had issued 250,148 assessment bills amounting to RM74.7 million up to April 30, and collected 90% of taxes.
The MPSJ operation last week was con-ducted on 20 premises, nine of which were commercial properties with a total arrears of RM103,364.
The council seized four items from a fur-niture shop in Taman Puchong Prima whose owner had failed to pay assessment tax for four years, amounting to RM2,538.
Three sofa sets, each worth RM800, and a lounge sofa worth RM200 were seized as a guarantee for payment.
Sharifah said that if the owner did not pay the overdue sum in a week, the council would auction the items.
She said the operation started last month and will end on June 30.
Defaulters will be issued with notices. Sharifah said they would be given 15 days from the date on the notice to pay the outstanding sum, failing which the council will conduct property seizure.
"But we give them an additional seven days on top of the 15 days to pay up out of compas-sion."
Municipal councillor Cheah Sang Soon said the council was serious about collecting overdue assessment tax from residential home owners as people can afford to pay for it.
"People have a lackadaisical attitude as they think the council will not take action if they do not pay up," he said.
Cheah said that under Section 148, Act 171 of the Local Government Act 1976, the local auth-ority has the power to seize assets from a resi-dent or any party found to owe the authority assessment tax.
--- end --- --- Article Information --- This article was emailed from Sun2Surf. Article's URL: http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=46835
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