The Temple Land, Monies & anything donated to Temples, the vast ecosystem which Temple supports - all are under attack by greedy NDA Govt... The Law - Bihar Hindu Religious Trusts Act, 1950 - is still alive and kicking via its amendment in 2007... Cutting the chase and finally to the point when one can read how govt wants to screw Hindus and their Temples via Law which hates existence of Hindus....
Note that then BJP (which when in Opposition "Protested" against this amendment) is now busy looting Hindu Temples...
Days after the Bihar State Board of Religious Trust recirculated an existing notice for all temples in the state to be registered under it and pay the Board four per cent tax on their annual income, BJP members in the state are questioning why mosques and madrasas too shouldn’t be taxed. The notice — which is based on the provisions of the Bihar Hindu Religious Trusts Act, 1950, as amended in 2007 — was recirculated last week. The Board cited the low percentage of temples abiding by the taxation law as reason for the recirculation.
The Bihar government had also announced last week that ownership of lands belonging to temples and monasteries registered under the Board will lie with the deity and that 30,000 acres of such land will be made into public property.
“We have only recycled an old rule,” said Bihar State Board of Religious Trusts Chairman Akhilesh Jain, referring to the provisions of the Bihar Hindu Religious Trusts Act of 1950.
He added: “There are around 4,600 temples registered under the Board. Unfortunately the number of Temples paying the tax will number less than 300. The money received as tax is also used to renovate crumbling temples.”
Referring to the 2007 amendment to the Act, former chairman of the Board, Acharya Kishor Kunal, told ThePrint that “in 2007 I increased the administrative cost of the temple from 12.5 per cent to 20 per cent. Since this is non-taxable, so for every Rs 100 given to a temple, only Rs 80 became taxable.”
Highlighting that the extent of property owned by temples varied, Kunal claimed that that while there are temples which are financially incapable of paying the tax, there were many that received huge donations, and yet do not pay the four per cent tax.
Bihar law minister Pramod Kumar, secretary of Patna’s Mahavir Mandir, which runs several charitable hospitals in the city, said the temple also pays Rs 75 lakh as tax to the Board every year.
Referring to the Bihar government’s announcement on ownership of temple land, Kumar had told the media last week that, “There are more than 36,000 acres of land owned by temples in Bihar. There are many cases of this land being sold to gullible buyers.” The law minister had added that that temple land has to be made accountable and safeguarded from illegal transactions.
According to informed sources in the Bihar government, the state has already written to all district magistrates to identify land owned by temples and maths and get them registered under the Board.
