Move to raise stamp duty, registration charges in Telangana

Hyderabad: A proposal is before the state government seeking enhancement of stamp duty and registration charges from the existing 6 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

The stamps and registration department submitted a request to this effect to chief secretary Somesh Kumar on Thursday. The CS forwarded the report to Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao for favourable consideration.

The government has set a target to earn Rs 12,500 crore in revenue through stamp duty and registration charges this fiscal. Enhancing the stamp duty and registration charges is imperative to achieve this target. The state suffered huge loss in revenue in the first three months of this fiscal (April-June)) due to the Covid second wave and subsequent lockdown.

The department earned just Rs 1,349 crore in the past three months.

In 2019-20, the target was to earn Rs 6,146 crore and the target was surpassed by the government earning Rs 6,671 crore.

In 2020-21, the earnings nosedived due to the Corona lockdown and suspending property transactions for about three months from September to December to enable launch of the Dharani portal. While the target was to earn Rs 10,000 crore, it could earn just Rs 5,243 crore, forming only 52 per cent of the target.

The cabinet sub-committee on resource mobilisation headed by finance minister Harish Rao recently recommended a hike in land and property values in Telangana. Such a proposal for a hike came after a gap of eight years, and to narrow the gap between government-prescribed values and market values of lands, properties.

The government could earn more revenues through land, property registrations if land values are increased and stamp duty and registration charges go up. The stamp duty and registration charges are collected based on land, property values prescribed by the government. The more the land/property value, the more the stamp duty and registration charges.