Land leasing, renting to get GST from July 1

Come July 1 and leasing of land, renting of buildings as well as EMIs for purchase of under-construction houses will start attracting the Goods and Services Tax

Fin Min Arun Jaitley introduced the draft bills. Pic/PTI

New Delhi: Come July 1 and leasing of land, renting of buildings as well as EMIs for purchase of under-construction houses will start attracting the Goods and Services Tax.

Sale of land and buildings will however, be out of the purview of GST, the new indirect tax regime. Such transactions will continue to attract the stamp duty, according to the legislations Finance Minister Arun Jaitley introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday for approval.

GST, which the government intends to roll out from July 1, 2017, will subsume central excise, service tax and state VAT among other indirect levies on manufactured goods and services.

The Central GST (CGST) bill — one of the four legislations introduced, states that any lease, tenancy, easement, licence to occupy land will be considered as supply of service. Also, any lease or letting out of the building, including a commercial, industrial or residential complex for business or commerce, either wholly or partly, is a supply of services as per the CGST bill.

The GST bills provide that sale of land and, sale of building except the sale of under construction building will neither be treated as a supply of goods nor a supply of services. Thus GST can't be levied in those supplies.

It was thought that GST may be levied on supply of immovable property such as land or building apart from levy of stamp duty. But the bills have clarified this position.

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