Earning income by renting commercial properties? Be ready to shell out GST. Here are the details

If you are earning Rs 20 lakh annually from renting or leasing commercial property, you’ll have to pay tax.

Under the new norms, GST will be levied on commercial rental income beyond Rs 20 lakh.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said that if the house property is rent out for shop or office purpose, no Goods and Service Tax (GST) will be levied up to Rs 20 lakh.

"Rental income received from residential house is exempt. But if you have given your unit to commercial enterprise, then it is taxable if you are getting more than Rs 20 lakh as rent," said Adhia.

The taxpayers will have to register themselves with the GST Network and pay taxes.

So far, nearly 69.32 lakh registered excise, service tax and VAT payers have migrated to the GSTN portal. There are over 80 lakh such assessees in the earlier indirect taxation regime.

GSTN Chief Executive Prakash Kumar said out of the 69.32 lakh, as many as 38.51 lakh have completed the entire registration process and registration certicate is being issued to them.

The remaining 30.8 lakh taxpayers are being sent SMS and emails by GSTN so that they complete the registration process by giving the details of the business like main place of business, additional place of business, promoters details.

Besides, over 4.5 lakh new assessees have registered on the GSTN portal since June 25.

Adhia further said that the facility to amend the details of businesses provided to the GSTN portal at the time of registration will open on July 17. Also, registration for GST practioners will open on the same day.

Besides, cancellation of registration can be done online.