Chandigarh: In a Diwali gift to the tax payers, the local bodies department has finally issued the notification for the one-time settlement of the pending house tax/property tax amount. The tax defaulters will also get additional 10% rebate if they clear the pending dues within the next three months.

However, this notification has come as a bolt from the blue for officials who had kicked off a drive against defaulters and had even started serving notices.

The officials had already prepared the details of property tax defaulters against whom they were about to issue the notices as well. As per the officials, around 1 lakh defaulters have to pay property tax. As far as the house tax is concerned, the department used to recover the house tax from commercial properties before 2013-14 that is before the imposition of the property tax.

This scheme will enable the residents to avail 10% rebate within three months after the notification. The defaulters will be charged 10% penalty if they clear their dues in the next three months. After that penalty amount will increase to 20%.

Requesting anonymity, a civic official claimed that in the ongoing recovery drive, they would have recovered the tax amount along with penalty and interest, but now they have to stop the drive in view of the notification.