February 29: The Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has said that around 200,000 taxpayers are not regularly paying taxes to the metropolis.    
KMC officials informed that out of 312,000 taxpayers registered at the KMC, 200,000 are not regularly paying taxes.    
According to KMC’s Revenue Department, the metropolis is preparing to step up ward-level monitoring to bring the defaulting taxpayers under the ambit of tax.

KMC said that around 100,000 taxpayers are among those showing reluctance to pay rent-related taxes. Similarly, the number of taxpayers who are unwilling to pay business tax, entertainment tax and advertisement tax exceed 100,000, said KMC Revenue Department’s Chief Dhruva Kafle.    
According to him, the KMC is also preparing to bring the unregistered taxpayers of all categories under the scope of tax from this month to increase tax compliance.    
Kafle said that arrears amounting to Rs 2 billion are yet to be recovered from the registered taxpayers of KMC. The dues have not been paid for the last 12 years, KMC sources said.    
The metropolis had set an annual revenue collection target of Rs 10.80 billion for the current fiscal year. It has so far been able to collect only Rs 5.80 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year.    
Though its revenue collection status was found satisfactory till the first six months of the fiscal year, KMC's revenue in the last month (mid-January to mid-February, 2024) has dropped compared to other months. -- RSS