‘Govt should regard registration charges as mere service tax’

RegNews, Hyderabad: A former district registrar in southern Hyderabad Vishnu vardhan raju has criticised the hike in registration charges and many other incidental charges and felt that the government should regard registration charges as mere service tax but not as a source of income generation. In undivided AP, the government used to revise the land values once in a year. Those who criticised such hike when in Opposition should tread carefully and act with responsibility while revising the charges upon coming to power. Is it not so, he questioned.

The Government should not overburden the people through the revision of various charges and fees, he felt. A thorough check of the revised charges indicates that no exercise had taken place to save the people from the additional burden the revision would impose. The mistake should be occurred due to lack of ability to discriminate between the stamp duty and registration charges. The government of Telangana has revised he registration charges effective from September 27, 2021.

Under the Telangana Societies’ Act and Chit Fund Act 1982, over 52 types of charges have been revised only to augment the government revenue. Objective of the department of registration is to permanently document the fixed assets transactions of the people. While registering property, two types of duties are collected. One is the stamp duty the other is the registration charges. The stamp duty is meant to earn revenue for the state’s exchequer, while the registration charges are collected as service tax.

The stamp duty and registration charges are collected separately with no relation whatsoever between the two. The registration charges are collected for various types of documents – importantly sale deeds, gift deeds and so on. For such deeds, to register them, the authorities used to collect only 0.5 per cent of the value of the property as tax. For other types of documents, to register them the charges vary from Rs 100 to Rs 1000.

A mere glance at the recent GO on hike various charges indicate that the objective of the government seems to be to fill the coffers. Two per cent of the value of the property was fixed as the charges to register the sale deeds that take place in villages and for exchange instruments take place in the limits of Panchayat.

The registration charges to take possession of the property are fixed as 1.6 per cent of the value of the property. Earlier, these kind of documents carried only 0.5 per cent of the value as registration charges. Under category-2, the gift deeds transfer among family members used to carry 0.5 per cent of the fees. Currently, to register such instruments, the charges of Rs 25,000 will be collected.

To register the gift deeds settlements in the family classified under the category-2, the registration charges have been increased from the previous 0.5 per cent of the value to a maximum of Rs 1 lakh. Earlier, maximum charges for such instruments were only Rs 10,000.

Under category-2, the highest registration charges were imposed on 12 categories of instruments. To register the general power of attorney, the maximum charges levied are Rs 20,000 per instrument. Earlier, only Rs 2000 was charged to register the instrument. It was shameful to levy a minimum charge of Rs 5000 to register power of attorney with consideration and a maximum of Rs 1 lakh.

It was ridiculous to note that the government will charge Rs 3000 to register wills, which does not require any stamp duty at all. He said that only ministers would be able to say to what extent they are justified in doing so. When a person is hospitalised or sick and not able to venture out by virtue of his or her sickness, the charges levied to register the documents at the doorstep of the person was hiked to Rs 10,000 from Rs 1000. In the name of rationalisation of registration charges, the government is burdening the people, he said.

The people are of the view that the government in the name of rationalisation of registration charges is burdening the people with heavy registration charges as the government is not able to discriminate between the purpose of the stamp duty and registration charges. The charges to register organisations under the Public Societies have been hiked manifold. It shows the lack of concern of the government for the people.

Therefore, the former district registrar has appealed to the government to regard the hike in various charges as the last straw on the camel’s back and see to that the people are not over burdened.

Mr VishnuVardhan Raju,
Hyderabad Ex. District Registrar.