Post offices may collect stamp duty

Bangalore, Mar 03: All the nationalised banks, some select co-operative banks and post offices across the State may soon be authorised to collect the stamp duty.

Currently, only the designated branches of the State Bank of Mysore (SBM), State Bank of India (SBI), State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) and Corporation Bank are collecting the stamp duty, in the denominations of Rs 20, 50 and 100.

Following a complaint by the Lokayukta to the government on the "unauthorised" sale of document sheets (non-judicial stamp papers, used for filing affidavits and signing agreements) by the banks, had also written on the alleged scam.

Reacting to the complaint , Revenue Minister Jagadish Shettar called for a meeting with the representatives of the nationalised banks and co-operative sector banks in the first week of January, to sort out the issue.

"I recommended that all the nationalised banks and some co-operative society banks should start collecting the stamp duty. There were discussions on other issues like the installation of franking machines in the banks, to issue document sheets and security steps that need to be put in place, to curb the sale of unauthorised sheets," Mr Shettar said

He added that the postal department sent in their request for being authorised to collect the stamp duty.

"We are considering their request. I have called for another meeting in a week's time, with the representatives of the banks and post office, revenue secretary, inspector general of revenue and stamp, to finalise the issue. The draft proposal is under preparation. We want all the nationalised banks to collect stamp duty and install franking machines at their cost.The machines cost around Rs one lakh, which should easily be affordable by the banks," he said.

Target

On the enforcement side, he said the government would fix a target for the sale of document sheets with the banks and post offices, and it would be mandatory on them to report to the government, about the target and achievement, on a periodic basis.

"Also presently these banks are printing the document sheets in their own security press. We propose to come out with some guidelines to monitor the printing of these sheets. They will either be printed at presses authorised by the government, or we may print them in the government press, with some stringent security measures to avoid another fake stamp paper racket," he said.

Mr Shettar added that the government may even introduce s-stamping, to avoid any stamp duty fraud.

He said that in the forthcoming meeting he would also discuss on measures to ensure timely reconciliation of stamp duty collection among banks, sub-registrar's office, district treasury and the main treasury, to avoid any discrepancies in the revenue collection for registration of properties.

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