It has been reported that on Thursday the Local Body Tax (LBT) department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) had seized the accounts of 836 traders for the nonpayment of LBT, after which officials of Nag Vidarbha Chamber of Commerce (NVCC) along with their president Ashwin Mehadia met Nagpur Municipal commissioner Abhijit Bangar and requested him to unfreeze the accounts.
According to joint commissioner of LBT, Milind Meshram “The traders took our warning very lightly when around 6000 cases were given a notice more than four months ago. These traders did not pay the outstanding LBT and no appeal was filed against the assessment by the traders.” All such callous attitude by the traders prompted NMC to take serious action against them. Meshram also cleared that NMC did not want to take a serious step but the misconduct by traders left no option but to seize the accounts.
Civic chief assured the traders to take positive steps in a couple of days to resolve trader’s problems. Meanwhile, NVCC president Ashwin Mehadia and Secretary Ramavtar Totla have urged the affected traders to file an appeal against the assessment order issued by the NMC over payment of LBT. They further added that filling an appeal would give NVCC some base to raise their issue in front of higher authorities.
According to the LBT department officials, the total amount of LBT pending in all 836 cases is rupees 101.93 crore. The state government even provided Abhay Scheme for the traders whose LBT was unpaid. The extension date for the scheme was March 29, 2016 later which was modified to March 31, 2018. Due to the nonpayment of their taxes, LBT department of NMC had to freeze the accounts in order to recover pending tax.
