Mayor contradicts own need for assessment Primary tabs View(active tab)Revisions First Published: 7:01am, Nov 21, 2013 Last Updated: 10:13am, Nov 21, 2013 Printer-friendly versionSend by email Nation by Jaqueline Png FZ Graphics KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 21): So is Kuala Lumpur City Hall’s (DBKL) proposed hike in assessment rates justified? Fz has taken a closer look at DBKL’s accounts from the last five years and find that the city is loaded with reserves, tax income, federal and private funding. Skimming through past reports, speeches and accounts, it seems that the current proposal to raise assessment by up to 300% is unjustified, as the authority has enough avenues of income generation. DBKL’s main source of income is assessment which typically makes up 40-60% of its total income. And since 2009, DBKL’s tax revenue steadily increased by 2-4%. However, last year, when Kuala Lumpur mayor Datuk Ahmad Phesal Talib, announced the city’s 2013 budget, he said income from assessment alone was expected to double to RM880.5mil -- an 8.6% jump from 2012. In his speech, he said the hike was due to many upcoming property developments, which would translate into more assessment. Hence it does not gel with the recent proposed tax hike of 100-300% which sent shock waves to KL folks as rates have remained the same for the past 21 years. The most damning evidence that DBKL is merely taking the easy way out by taxing ratepayers, come from Ahmad Phesal himself. His 2013 budget speech boasts of its prosperous accounts in 2012: “Even though there is no increase in assessment tax and rates have not been revised since 1992, tax revenue continues to rise because the number of properties that are taxable has increased as well. Rapid property development has also improved revenue from development charges. Rate hikes of those charges and the change of calculation method had also increase tax revenue. “On top of that, DBKL managed to recover assessment arrears, raking in another RM100mil into their accounts,” he said. From 2009 to 2013, DBKL has received plenty of funding federal government to carry out projects under the 9th and 10th Malaysia Plan and also from private sector and sometimes from Petronas. DBKL hardly ever spends every single cent allocated to the financial year. For instance, development cost in 2011 was budgeted at RM1.017mil, but only RM789.6bil were spent. Hence RM227.4mil was carried forward to the next year. By merely looking at general accounts of DBKL, cost cutting effort by former mayor Tan Sri Ahmad Fuad Ismail has made the city rather well-off. In 2010, Ahmad Fuad, who was mayor from 2008 to July 2012, had indicated that while assessment that had not been revised for so long, he would not push for a rate hike. In fact, due to DBKL’s financial standing, it could even afford to reduce assessment tax by 2% for service apartments and apartments in commercial buildings, sustaining a shortfall of RM4 mil in revenue. To maintain the city’s revenue, there were special task forces established to collect arrears, amounting to RM4 million especially by low cost apartment dwellers. Read more: fz/content/mayor-contradicts-own-need-assessment#ixzz2lLRe9Oli
Posted on: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 04:20:58 +0000
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