Real estate developers to challenge levy of service tax on rentals

Real estate developers, retailers and multiplex owners among others have moved the Bombay High Court challenging the levy of service tax on rental income from commercial properties.

Among the many developers and corporates demanding relief on this front include real estate developers like DLF universal and retailers like Pantaloon, Trent Ltd, Aditya Birla Retail Ltd, Archies and corporates like CISCO Systems India, Citi bank NA, IBM India, reliance Petro marketing, Reliance Webstore, McDonald, Adlabs Films and Bijli Group.

Bombay High Court has accepted a petition against the service tax filed by Confederation of Real Estate Developer’s Association of India (CREDAI) and Retailer’s Association of India (RAI) and the Multiplex Association on India (MAI).While issuing a notice in this regards to the government, the court observed that any payment of service tax will be subject to the final out come of the petition. The matter is listed for final hearing on September 17, 2007.