Mudon Township housing tax leads to legal battle

Thus, 2 April, 2010

Mi Layi Htaw & Mi Yin Mon


100 Villagers from Mudon Township’s Hneepadaw village have just concluded a two day-long legal clash with the Mudon Township Peace and Development Council (TPDC); homeowners from the village were ordered to court following their refusal to pay a tax on recently built homes, a fee that has been threatened by the Mudon TPDC since September 2009.

The housing tax in question is a new tax levied by the Mudon TPDC specifically on homes build between the years of 2007 and 2010. The tax, proposed in September 2009, originally mandated that new homeowners would be taxed according to their homes’ sizes and construction materials. Repeated attempts by the Mudon TPDC were largely ineffectual for the next six months. Unfortunately, dismayed Mudon Township villagers reported earlier this week that their TPDC chairmen had begun visiting villages all over the township, and actively demanding the fees in question.

IMNA’s March 29th story covered the debacle; tax collection attempts reportedly were met with widespread chaos, protest, and in the case of Hneepadaw village, intractable refusal.

A villager from Hneepadaw explained to IMNA that the Mudon TPDC has attempted to collect the tax from house owners 3 separate times since September 2009. When council members arrived in the village for the third time, on the 25th of March, and met with widespread refusal yet again, the 100 villagers were ordered to travel to the township’s Justice Department in Mudon town, in order to discuss the issue in court.

“They didn’t choose of kind of house [to be taxed more than others], one house is taxed 4 million kyat [regardless of building material], and they never taken the house tax [from us] this year, they have been trying to collect the house tax since September until now. This last time, ‘those that aren’t giving the house tax should go to the law courts’, that’s what someone from the TPDC said to me,” a second Hneepadaw resident explained.

According to reports, the villagers arrived at the Mudon town court on March 31st, after 2 days deliberations, the 100 villagers were sent home to Hneepadaw, without receiving fines or prison terms; the dissenters were however severely reprimanded, and informed that any failure to pay the housing taxes when the TPDC returns next month will result in harsher reprisals.