Bhaskar Investigation: Nexus owner has not paid tax of Rs 75 lakh for 4 years

The Nexus building near Madhapar Chowk in Rajkot city has been involved in several scams including illegal construction, illegal construction in violation of the ribbon rules of the State Highway Authority, illegal 12th floor and stairs, fire NOC in violation of the GDCR. However, the municipal commissioner as well as the TPO. In the name of action, they are spending time suppressing files and asking for opinions. Meanwhile, another fact has come to light that the tax of Rs 75 lakh of the complex is pending for the last four years, yet no action has been taken by the tax branch of the corporation. If there is an ordinary shopkeeper, then 25000 taxes are also sealed and there is no action taken even though there is more than Rs 3 lakh in the money owed to someone in the big showroom and office. At present, the corporation is adopting tactics, including interest waivers, to increase revenue, in such a big bill of a single building pending and no action is taken, proves that the corporation is not paying taxes and those who break the rules are being preferred to the taxpayers who pay the legal tax. It remains to be seen how much tax is due, when the tax will be collected and the seal will be processed. This is the system of taxation: Once the building is built, the property tax will be revived, if there is a dispute, satellite image or electricity bill support Any building is assessed from the moment it is completed and the tax has to be paid from that year itself. For this, the date of the completion certificate is given by the builder and if the completion is not received or it seems that the certificate has been taken late, then the tax branch of the corporation gets the date of the electricity connection. Since then, satellite images of the site are also obtained in case of any dispute. The tax starts counting from the moment it is proved that the building has started being used. In the case of the Nexus, the assessment has been done since 2021, in fact, the Nexus plan was presented for the fourth time that year, the building is already standing. The corporation can do the sealing proceedings as follows: The municipal corporation's rules for property sealing are clear. Where the property tax is more than Rs 1 lakh, the recovery officer has to pay it. Especially in a building like Nexus where there are many commercial properties in one place. If there is a tax of more than one lakh, the tax branch first sets the bill and asks him to pay the tax. A warrant has to be issued as per Section 45(1) of the GPMC Act after 15 days of execution. If the bill is not paid within 7 days after issuing the warrant, the property is sealed and if the tax is not paid after sealing, it can be recovered by auction. Apart from this, the months of January to March are considered as the recovery period. At this time, the tax branch has issued a notice and the amount of Rs 20,000 is pending and if the tax of the current year and the previous year is due, it can also be sealed at any time, the tax branch experts are saying. In order to avoid paying double tax, Bakir kept all the properties in the name of the firm According to the rules of the corporation, the property tax of every property is fixed. However, if a commercial property is rented, the tax on that property has to be doubled. Many showrooms and offices and other businesses have been started in the Nexus building. But, when the tax bills were checked, the name of Bakir Gandhi's firm was found in them. If the property is reported as leased to the corporation, then the tax will be doubled, so not a single property has been rented out so far. Therefore, whenever the recovery inspector goes there and there is a tenant, then the process of directly doubling the tax is done and in view of this, the tax of a single building is more than Rs 1 crore. For this, the corporation has to investigate how many showrooms have been rented out there and since when. For this, the date of the electricity connection has to be taken or the contract has to be obtained from the person who has kept the space on rent or lease.