Registration fee, stamp duty ‘errors’ worth Rs 217 crore found

Mumbai: The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in its revenue report has brought to light irregularities related to stamp duty and registration fees worth Rs 217.27 crore for the year 2015-16.  

The auditor has also highlighted various discrepancies in the levying of stamp duty, due to which the state has lost a huge amount of revenue.  

“There were 463 cases out of 593 that were audited by the CAG… and found a revenue loss of Rs 155.52 crore. All the cases were inspected between 2015-16,” a report of the CAG tabled in the legislature recently stated.

According to the report, short levy of stamp duty due to non-consideration of licence fees and security deposits in lease agreement resulted in loss of Rs 19.61 crore while incorrect calculation of consideration of property resulted in short levy of stamp duty of Rs 11.94 crore. It also mentions that the revenue sharing aspect between owners and purchases was not considered for calculating the market value, resulting in short levy of the stamp duty of Rs 10.87 crore.  

Citing a few more examples, the CAG said that the revenue department allowed the concession of stamp duty on Gift Deed, though not admissible as the ‘donor’ and ‘donee’ were not lineal ascendant or descendant, which resulted in short levy of stamp duty amounting to Rs 1.15 crore.

“Incorrect calculation of market value of property resulted in short levy of stamp duty of Rs 57.95 lakh. Incorrect grant exemption on lease deed by the revenue department resulted in non-levy of stamp duty of Rs 21.05 lakh. The department did not consider the renewal clause as part of lease deed for calculation of market value (which) resulted in short levy of stamp duty of Rs 10.27 lakh. Also, misclassification of instrument of release deed resulted in short levy of stamp duty amounting to Rs 10.57 lakh,” the report said.  

The report also observed, “The Special Economic Zone policy (was) implemented during the period 2001 to 2016 and as many as 209 projects were established. On the other hand, not a single project was established out of 16 proposals under the special township policy.”

The report has also pointed that industry, energy and labour department and tourism and cultural affairs department had issued as many as 8,017 stamp duty exemption certificates under the ‘package scheme of incentives’, ‘IT-ITES policy’ and ‘tourism policy’. However, 3,443 units that received the certificates did not start activities.