Criticising the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) - ruled municipal Corporations for ‘hiking’ around 11 different taxes in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday said that the party will apprise people about this “inhuman” act and organise a mass movement to protest against such “arbitrary” tax hike.
However, a senior corporation official said that the decision to hike taxes has not been taken yet. "The proposal was tabled in the budget speech by Additional Commissioners and it will go through several rounds before being passed by the house," he said.
In the last three days three MCDs under the BJP have presented their budgets and hiked different taxes and the move will devastate the citizens who are already broken due to the effect of the pandemic, senior AAP leader and MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak on Thursday said, adding that from the property tax to the commercial house tax, residential house tax, charges for a trade license, factory license, health license are among the 11 different taxes hiked by the BJP ruled MCD.
Pathak said that at one side the Kejriwal Government which has not increased a single tax in the last six years but doubled the budget and on the other side the BJP ruled MCD which has betrayed the people by arbitrary tax hikes. He said that the BJP has realised that their term in MCD is getting over within a year. This is why they have planned to completely loot the MCD and destroy the system.
"The Corporations have hiked the professional tax which means now the professionals will have to pay more for their professions. Now the people of Delhi will need to pay betterment tax. They have also increased the property transfer tax. If any person in Delhi wants to open a factory then the person will be needed to pay double money for the license of the factory. The rate of trade license along with health license was also hiked.
The AAP leader said that the corporations also hiked commercial house tax, residential house tax and charge for cleaning garbage.
“We completely oppose all these tax hikes and will protest and organise a mass movement against the corruption and proposed hike,” he said.