The Johor Baru City Council (MBJB) will reduce residential property taxes effective January 2014 to ease the burden of the lower income group.

The reduction would be based on the type of title, Housing and Local Government Committee chairperson Abd Latif Bandi said during the Budget 2014 debate at the 13th Johor state assembly sitting at Kota Iskandar in Nusajaya today.   

The new rate for the housing category was 0.12 percent compared to 0.13, while Malay reserve housing was at 0.04 percent down from 0.05, he said.

“Low cost housing is at 0.11 percent down from 0.13 percent. As for agricultural land, it's maintained at 0.07,” he said.

He added, however, that business property taxes would be raised to 0.27 percent compared to 0.26 and industrial to 0.30 to 0.28 percent.   

He advised those who were dissatisfied with the new rates to submit written complaints by Dec 2.  

Abd Latif also informed that the state government had carried out a study on the delineation of the borders involving 16 local authorities.

All the districts have been finalised and were under the process of gazetting except for Johor Baru and Kulaijaya, as they needed to be scrutinised further due to rapid development, he said.  

Meanwhile, all the local authorities were also in the process of implementing the fully privatised solid waste management and public cleaning programme in stages.        

“The Kluang Municipal Council is the third one to do so next September. The waste management will be taken over by the Waste Management and Public Cleaning Corporation,” he said.  

- Bernama