Real estate, JDAs and development
For landowners and developers — where the income tax and GST treatments of a joint development agreement diverge, what crystallises at the completion certificate, and the positions worth fixing before an agreement is signed rather than after.
20 articles · written and reviewed by CA K Sanjay Bhargav, Chartered Accountant
Cornerstone guide
RERA Compliance for Promoters in Karnataka: The Full Calendar
Registration is the easy part. After it come four quarterly updates a year, a certificate before every withdrawal, an annual audit report, and a set of events that each carry their own form and their own penalty.
Cornerstone guide
JDA Taxation: Income Tax and GST on Joint Development
The landowner's adviser sees capital gains. The developer's adviser sees GST. Neither sees the whole transaction — which is why JDA disputes usually start with something both sides thought the other had handled.
K-RERA Form-7 Annual Audit: FY 2025-26 Due 15 November 2026
Every registered project in Karnataka needs a Form-7 for FY 2025-26, signed by the promoter's statutory auditor and uploaded with the audited accounts by 15 November 2026. K-RERA has already fined promoters a fixed amount per project for missing the last two years.
K-RERA Quarterly Progress Report: Q2 Due 15 October 2026
Every registered project in Karnataka files a quarterly update within fifteen days of the quarter end, and for FY 2026-27 each late one costs Rs 25,000. The figures in it are public, and they are compared with the annual audit report and with GST returns.
RERA Project Extension and Delay Interest: Karnataka Promoters
A RERA registration runs to the completion date the promoter declared, and extending it is an application, not a formality. The allottees' right to interest runs on a separate clock that the extension does not stop.
RERA Registration in Karnataka: Which Projects Need It
The test is not whether you have sold anything yet. It is whether you have advertised, marketed or offered a unit in a project above the threshold, and a hoarding or a listing on a property portal is enough.
RERA Withdrawal Certificate in Karnataka: Form-4 and the 70% Rule
Seventy per cent of what buyers pay goes into a no-lien account, and it comes out only against three certificates. In Karnataka the CA's Form-4 caps the withdrawal at the lower of two percentages, and upfront land cost does not lift that cap.
GST on Advances From Flat Buyers: When It Falls Due
A developer's GST is not paid when the flat is handed over. It is paid instalment by instalment, from the booking amount onward — and a cancellation two years later has a window inside which it can be reversed, and a route outside it.
Company or LLP Landowner in a JDA: No Deferral
The pillar says it in one line — no deferral. For a corporate landowner that line is the whole problem: a gain measured on property not yet built, in a year with no cash, and a stock-in-trade question underneath it.
GST on TDR and FSI: Reverse Charge, Exemption, Timing
The 80:20 post excludes TDR and FSI from the procurement test because they carry their own reverse charge. This is that charge — the exemption that shrinks it, the cap on it, and the date it falls due.
JDA Agreement Review: The Twelve Clauses That Decide the Tax
The pillar says every outcome is negotiable before execution and fixed after it. This is the clause-by-clause version of that sentence — what each provision does to the tax, and the wording that goes wrong.
Section 43CA: Stamp Duty Value on Builder Sales
A distressed sale, a launch discount, a unit sold to clear stock before completion — each can be taxed on a figure higher than the price received. The rule, the tolerance that softens it, and the date that fixes it.
80:20 Procurement Rule for Builders: RCM on Shortfall
It is not a monthly compliance and it does not appear on any return until it is too late to fix. The test runs across the whole financial year, and the answer is only visible once the year has closed.
Area Sharing vs Revenue Sharing: The GST Valuation Gap
Both structures deliver the landowner a share of the same project. They do not deliver the same tax outcome — and one of them has a valuation rule that the law never actually wrote.
GST on Sale of Developed Plots: When It Applies
The plot sale is almost never the problem. The separately charged development works, the amenity contributions and the construction obligation are — and those are the lines the department reads first.
The Landowner's Share in a JDA: GST and the ITC
Landowners expect to receive flats. They do not expect an invoice. The GST on that invoice is often recoverable — but only on one side of a single date, and only by someone who registered in time.
RERA Filings vs GST Returns: Why the Notice Arrives
You already told the authority what you sold. You told the department what you declared. Nobody has to investigate anything to notice that the two do not match.
Society Redevelopment: What Members and Societies Pay
A member hands over a flat and receives a larger one, a corpus payment, rent for two years and a displacement amount. Four receipts, four different arguments, and no single settled answer.
TDS on Joint Development Agreements: What It Covers
The deduction is narrow and it is misapplied in both directions — withheld on the area share where it does not apply, and missed on the cash where it does.
Unsold Inventory at the Completion Certificate
Every unsold flat on the day the certificate is issued stops being inventory and starts being a tax computation. The date is known years in advance, which is the only good news in it.
Other topics
- Tax notices and assessments
- Business tax, audit and filing
- GST — registration, returns and credit
- Foreign income, RSUs and ESOPs
- NRI money, property and repatriation
- Foreign-owned companies in India
- Bank finance and company compliance
- Internal controls, IT audit and data protection
- Service exports, GCCs and professionals
- Manufacturing and industry
- The Income-tax Act 2025 transition
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