Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority has issued property tax notices to the inhabitants of private housing societies, asking them to pay the taxes within the stipulated time, otherwise strict action would be initiated against them.

The CDA has issued these notices despite the fact that the matter is lying pending before the federal ombudsman, a well place source told Daily Times on Monday. The ombudsman has to decide the matter whether the residents of private housing societies come under the jurisdiction of the CDA authorities, or not, as these societies were not developed with public capital.

The source said that in the past residents of the private housing societies were excluded from the property tax burden but the Mayor of Islamabad and the Chairman CDA, Shaikh Ansar Aziz, has decided to extenf the net of property tax to increase the CDA’s income.

A CDA spokesman informed Daily Times that notices had been issued but no discrimination would be carried out with any person and added the residents of all the sectors would have to pay these taxes according to the prevailing laws.

However, the CDA has not issued property tax notices to the influential people who have built high rise buildings, shopping plazas and marquees on the prime land of E/11 Sector located along the Margalla Road. It is beyond comprehension that these commercial properties built on prime land have remained untaxed while residential houses and other properties built on not so prime lands of the same sector have been taxed at a rate applicable to the posh E/7 Sector.

Generally, commercial buildings are charged a higher rate of property tax than residential houses, but in the case of E/11 Sector commercial buildings constructed along the roads encircling E/11 Sector have not been taxed at all, for some unknown reasons.

The property tax rate for E/7 Sector is Rs 6 per square yard whereas it is Rs. 5.25 per square yard for F/7 Sector. Both E/7 and F/7 are fully developed sectors of Islamabad and the CDA is providing a wide range of civic facilities in these sectors whereas the CDA is not providing any civic facility to the residents of E/11 Sector and yet it wants to charge them property tax at the highest rate, which till recently, was applicable only to the most exclusive E/7 Sector of Islamabad..

The CDA has neither formally taken-over E/11 Sector so far nor it is providing any civic facility to the residents of this sector, but it has issued them notices for the payment of property tax with retrospective effect.

For example, the CDA has been even denying to bury the dead persons of E/11 Sector in CDA managed graveyards. Even electricity poles and sewerage lines have been laid in this sector by the cooperative housing societies, which have also made arrangements for the door-to-door collection of trash.

Now, some societies, including the Pakistan Medical Housing Society, are engaged in executing a project for the supply of potable water with funds raised from the members. For providing some civic services to the residents, the members pay a good amount as service charges to the cooperative housing societies every month.

According to E/11 residents, notices to residents for payment of tax without formally taking over this sector and providing civic facilities is unjust. The residents ask as to how can the CDA classify Islamabad’s residents into two groups, i.e. one enjoying all facilities while the other deprived of any facility and yet the CDA wants to charge property tax from both and in the latter case at a higher rate.