New Town: Homeowners and commercial establishments in Bengal's showpiece township will have to pay property tax for the first time from April 2, based on the unit area assessment system introduced last year by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.

Nearly one lakh property owners, both residents and commercial properties like City Centre New Town, did not have to pay municipal tax to the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) since 2009.

Taxation won't be with retrospective effect, an official said.

Debashis Sen, the chairman of the NKDA, told Metro on Sunday that the unit area assessment system that has been a headache for many taxpayers in the metropolitan belt would be a breeze for residents of New Town.

Sen said every taxpayer would be able to initiate and complete the entire process - from assessment to payment - online. "This is the unique feature - that everything can be done online. If anyone does face a problem, a visit to any of the two NKDA offices will solve it. We will set up help desks there."

The NKDA is training a team of "tax sathis" to visit households and help property owners file their tax assessments free of cost. Each of these personnel will be carrying a laptop with Internet connectivity. "We will soon be uploading the contact details of tax sathis on the NKDA website," Sen said.

An NKDA official said the township had been divided into seven zones with a different base unit area value. This value ranges from Rs 9 to Rs 34 per square foot.

"The zones have been designated based on a basic valuation per unit area. Other multiplication factors like whether the property is self-occupied or given out on rent and its location will be taken into consideration to calculate the property tax," Sen said.

Any property within the central business district (CBD) of Action Area II, near the Finance Hub and the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre, will be charged Rs 34 per square foot. For properties in sub CBD-1, near Novotel, and sub CBD-II, adjoining the automobile hub opposite the Akankha intersection, the rate is Rs 28 per square foot.

The other calculator factors that will be multiplied with the basic valuation per unit area are age, location, structure and use of the property.

In terms of age, two categories have been fixed - one comprising buildings 10 years old or less and the other for structures built before that. The factor values for this category are 1.00 and 0.90 respectively.

For location, there are four different values. Houses or commercial establishments next to a road 40m or wider will have to use a multiplicative factor of 1.60 while calculating tax. Properties in areas that have a road of width between 20 and 40m have a factor of 1.40. Buildings next to roads with width ranging from 10 and 20m have a factor of 1.20. For roads lesser than 10m in width, this factor has been fixed at 1.00.

The nature of the buildings will also be taken into account. All brick-and-mortar structures will have a multiplicative factor of 1.00. For kuccha houses, the value is 0.60.

How a building is being used determines the fourth multiplicative factor. For 4-star hotels and above, the factor is 7.50 and for IT companies operating out of their own buildings, it is 8.00. Start-ups will calculate tax with a factor of 5.00 and government buildings with 2.00.

The last factor is occupancy, depending on the nature of housing complexes and whether the owners stay in the units or have rented those out. The highest factor is 1.45 and this has been reserved for HIG buildings given out on rent. If portions of a property owned by a single entity falls under different categories because of a difference in occupancy status, they may be subjected to diverse multiplicative factor values.

Tax calculation for covered spaces and buildings will require the assessee to multiply the basic valuation per unit area with all the multiplicative factors like age, location, use and occupancy. That value will have to be multiplied by the size of the covered area in square feet. The result will then be multiplied with the tax percentage to arrive at the property tax.

The NKDA will give a 5 per cent rebate on timely payment in each quarter. There is a provision for an extra 5 per cent off if the tax for an entire year is paid at one go.