The Nainital commercial tax division that comprises Nainital, Almora, Bageshwar, Pithoragarh and Champawat districts has missed the luxury tax target of Rs 5.80 crore set for the year 2012-13, achieving only about Rs 5.39 crore as luxury tax till the end of March 2013.
However, the Nainital district has emerged as the highest luxury tax payer among other districts of the Kumaon division which come under the Nainital Commercial tax division.
As the figures provided by the office of the Joint Commissioner, the Nainital commercial tax division, Haldwani, suggest, Rs 475.40 lakh was collected as the luxury tax from Nainital district during the financial year 2012-2013.
While the luxury tax collection from the Almora district remained Rs 47.96 lakh during the same financial year. Similarly, the luxury tax collection from Bageshwar district was recorded Rs 14.35 lakh during the year
2012-2013, while an amount of Rs 1.53 lakh was collected from Pithoragarh as luxury tax for the year 2012-2013 and Rs 0.17 lakh was collected as luxury tax from Champawat during the same financial year, as the figures from the Nainital commercial tax division reveal.
The interesting fact is that as the officials concerned of the Nainital commercial tax division maintain about 80 per cent of the luxury tax comes from Nainital district’s main Nainital city and Ramnagar region.
Haldwani ranks third after Nainital and Ramnagar in luxury tax collection, they added. The interesting fact is that while Rs 389.49 lakh was collected as luxury tax from main Nainital city for the year 2012-2013 and Rs 69.31 lakh as luxury tax from Ramnagar for the same year, Haldwani could contribute only Rs 16.60 lakh as luxury tax for the year 2012-2013, according to the figures provided by the Nainital commercial tax division.
Similarly, in rest of the Kumaon division luxury tax is collected only from the main Almora city , Pithoragarh city and Bageshawar city and Tanakpur city. In view of the improved spending capacity of people of late , the luxury tax from the Kumaon division (except Udham Singh Nagar as it falls in the jurisdiction of the Kashipur commercial tax division), has not been so impressive as experts here believe.
However, keeping in view the previous year’s luxury tax collection,this year the Government has set luxury tax target of Rs 660.00 lakh for the Nainital commercial tax division for the year
2013-2014.