Maharashtra government is mulling over a proposal to get local body tax (LBT) collected all over the state, except Mumbai, through the sales tax department instead of municipal corporations.

While in Mumbai, octroi would continue due to the steadfast opposition of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to any tax other than octroi. "We would change the collection machinery to remove the irritants in the collection process but the incidence of tax would be exactly the same," Finance Secretary Sudhir Shrivastava said. The state government was earlier considering levying a surcharge on value added tax (VAT) in place of the LBT.