Guest house owners in Delhi are unhappy with the revised property tax norms by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). As per the revised tax regime, guest houses in Delhi has been put into ‘Special Non-Residential’ category along with three-star and above category of hotels, malls, banquet halls, multiplexes, air conditioned health clubs and swimming pools. The property tax in this category is flat 20 per cent.
Guest houses in Delhi were in the ‘Non-Residential’ category so far with a property tax obligation ranging from ten-15 per cent. Sandeep Khandelwal, President, Delhi Hotel & Restaurant Owners’ Association said, “We condemn this step by the MCD to club us with three-star and above category of hotels, whereas hotels up to two-star are still assessed under Non-Residential category for property tax assessment. This is also in violation of the DMC Act 1957 Section 421, which considers guest houses as non-commercial lodging houses.”
The association has approached Prithvi Raj Sahni, Mayor of Delhi and the Ved Prakash Gupta, Standing Committee Chairman, MCD to reconsider the revised norm. |