Thiruvananthapuram: The cabinet meeting held on Wednesday decided to issue the Kerala building tax act (amendment) ordinance, bringing about crucial changes to the 50-year-old act, introduced in 1973. 

Hefty fines will be slapped on building owners who provide wrong measurements from now on. The fine will amount to up to half of the actual building tax. It should be noted that the current law stipulates 6 months of imprisonment or a fine of Rs 1,000 or a combination of both, for such offences.       

Regulations will be put in place for redirecting the luxury tax levied by the Centre on residential and multi-storeyed buildings (spread over 3000 sq ft) to the state coffers. 

Through the ordinance, the state government has also renamed the ‘luxury’ tax as the ‘additional’ tax. As per the new provisions, the district collectors will be given an entire year to evaluate the ‘property tax’, after thorough verification.  Currently, the collectors have a three-month window.    

The ordinance will also put an end to the practice of revenue officials visiting sites for measuring buildings and determining taxes. And also, if there are multiple flats/apartments owned by different individuals in a single building, then each of those flats/apartments will be considered a separate building.

The revenue department is in charge of levying and collecting these taxes.