Municipal Property Tax of West Bengal

In a federal set up, local government is found to exist along with Central and State governments. Urban local bodies (ULBs) are supposed to deal with the matters which are characteristically local. The objective of this paper is to focus the trends and pattern of property tax of West Bengal for the years 2001-02, 2007-08 and 2013-14.The methodology is empirical in nature and secondary data are used for analysis. The property tax is the major source of revenue in tax receipts of ULBs of West Bengal but the share of this tax in total receipts is not very high. The method of collection of this tax is traditional. Mainly Annual Rental value method is used which is inelastic in nature.

Firstly the analysis has been done on state level. Then the trend of this tax is analysed at the dis aggregative level taking into account the districts of West Bengal.