Housing societies/ Apartment Associations maintaining collectively common areas on a “no profit” basis and recovering actual maintenance expenses from its members ( residents/ owners )  are deemed to be running a “business” under current GST laws and therefore mandated to pay now 18% GST on the whole of the recovered expenses when the recovery exceeds ₹7,500 per apartment/month (Threshold Limit) and included the Threshold Limit actual charges for (a) water supplied to apartments; (b) electricity used for common areas, though both are exempt from GST.

Urgent necessity to save Citizens staying in Housing societies/ Apartments from the unfair and unjust GST burden, Appeal to GST Council to take necessary actions as below

1.Treat Housing societies/ Apartment Associations differently from recreational clubs and other Associations 

2. Exempt Housing societies/ Apartment Associations from GST under the doctrine of "mutuality"

3.Alternatively increase Threshold Limit from ₹ 7.500 per apartment/month based on yearly Inflation in line with cost of living as per cost indexation from 2018.

4.Unambiguously exclude charges for water distribution to residents and actual common area electricity from Threshold Limit without linking to pure agency compliance condition.

Incidentally, exempting Housing societies/ Apartment Associations from GST, will not result in any significant loss of tax revenue in as much in the common expenses recovered by the Associations, the incidence of GST already stands included as part of the cost of third-party services and always gets passed on to all its members, including those paying less than the Threshold Limit.