Amendments in Indian Stamp Act, 1899 to come into effect from today

Amendments in the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 brought through Finance Act 2019 and Rules made thereunder will come into effect today. In order to facilitate ease of doing business and to bring in uniformity of the stamp duty on securities across States and thereby build a pan-India securities market, the Central Government, through requisite amendments, has created the legal and institutional mechanism. It will enable states to collect stamp duty on securities market instruments at one place by one agency through one Instrument.

 

Ministry of Finance said that a mechanism for appropriately sharing the stamp duty with relevant State Governments has also been developed which is based on the state of domicile of the buyer. It said, the present system of collection of stamp duty on securities market transactions led to multiple rates for the same instrument, resulting in jurisdictional disputes and multiple



incidences of duty, thereby raising the transaction costs in the securities market.

 

This rationalized and harmonized system through centralized collection mechanism is expected to ensure minimize cost of collection and enhance revenue productivity. 

 

Further, this system will help develop equity markets and equity culture across the length and breadth of the country, ushering in balanced regional development.

 

The Ministry said, the stamp-duty on sale, transfer and issue of securities shall be collected on behalf of the State Government by the collecting agents who will then transfer the collected stamp-duty in the account of the concerned State Government.

 

The collecting agents will be the Stock Exchanges or authorized Clearing Corporations and the Depositories.