Amid intense pressure from metropolis residents and local politicians from the major parties, Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) on Tuesday backed from its previous decision to increase land tax. The KMC´s decision to increase land tax up to 200 percent in some parts of metropolis from the beginning of the ongoing fiscal year was heavily criticized.

Officials at the KMC said a special meeting of municipal council has decided not to implement the increased tax rate. "Due to the dispute over the land evaluation rate in some parts, the council has decided to revert to the old tariff," Mahesh Kafle, chief of metropolis Revenue Department, said. He said that representatives of the major political parties were also invited for the council meeting. The local politicians of major political parties like Nepali Congress, UCPN-Maoist, CPN-UML and others were against the decision.

The metropolis had revised the land tax to meet its increased target of revenue collection. Kafle said that it will be difficult for KMC to meet revenue target and that will, ultimately, affect development works.

The metropolis had classified lands in different locations under different tax bracket in the revised policy.
In the revised policy, the office had fixed land rate between Rs 4.5 million and Rs 8.5 million per ropani depending upon the location and set the tax accordingly. Earlier, the metropolis had fixed tax based on the width of the road and its quality.

"We will strictly collect house rent tax and property tax to meet the target," he added. Though the National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS) shows that there are 2,54,764 houses in the metropolis, the KMC could collect tax from only 60,000 houses. The KMC aims to collect Rs 460 million in land revenue in the ongoing fiscal year

source: republica,27 august 2013