Stamp Duty Intricacies In India

Stamp duty is a very important factor in structuring transactions, specially with many of the states in India imposing high stamp duties on documents to shore up their revenues. A document inadequately stamped is not admissible as evidence. It is thus very important that stamp duty implications be examined upfront whilst structuring a transaction rather than just before execution as the latter approach often leads to delay and many a times may also lead to payment of excess stamp duty when it was not required. The matter is compounded by the fact that stamp duty is different in each of the states of India and there are a few states where even the local lawyers are not well versed with the stamp duty attracted by different documents. Moreover, changes to stamp duties may be announced by state governments at the time of the state budget or even otherwise. In the case of many states, the updated stamp acts/schedules may not be available. At times even the state government