ABOUT this time of the year, the fear of enhancement in property tax starts dangling over the heads of DHA house-owners. The report, ‘DHA residents in uproar over CBC plan to revise property tax’ (Nov 14), says it all.

The Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) seems to have come down hard upon the house-owners this year, according to the report. In the new calculations, the owner of a house on 1,000 square yards, who was paying Rs15,000 annually as property tax, will now pay Rs90,000 per annum; an increase of 600 per cent. This is atrocious.

If the needs of the CBC demand such drastic impositions, why are they nursing their unnecessary exemptions? Secretaries, ministers, government officials and retired military officers, who form the bulk of property-owners in the area, pay no property tax at all. They are exempted. Why?

If a non-government pensioner, who may just own a Sea View apartment in the DHA, can pay property tax, why cannot section officers, secretaries, ministers, etc., in the government do the same?

To authenticate this enhancement, the CBC is seeking solace from sections 66 and 67 of the Cantonment Act of 1924. This Act, in fact, was used some 100 years ago, by the colonial rulers to extort money from the hapless locals. The CBC makes it look more democratic and fair by asking for objections or suggestions.

It does not take rocket science to see that the simple solution is being ignored. Make all DHA house-owners pay property tax equitably, and the matter will stand resolved fairly and logically once and for all.

Capt S. Afaq Rizvi
Karachi

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2022