#GST Council confirms: Legal Services provided by lawyers, law firms under reverse charge

In the 20th GST Council Meeting held yesterday, a number of decisions on services under the new tax regime were taken, including the applicability of Goods and Services Tax to legal services..The Council has clarified that the GST on services provided by lawyers including Senior Advocates and law firms would be applicable on a ‘reverse charge’ basis..The Decisions list by the GST Council states,.“To clarify that legal services (including representational services) provided by an individual advocate or a senior advocate or a firm of advocates (including LLP) provided to a business entity in taxable territory are covered under reverse charge mechanism.”.Earlier, the Ministry of Finance too had clarified that there is no change made in taxation of legal services in the GST era and it will be on ‘reverse charge’ basis..The Delhi High Court is also seized of this matter and has asked the Central government to clarify the exact position on the applicability of GST to lawyers. On July 18, the High Court had also directed that all legal services provided by advocates, law firms and Senior Advocates will be continued to be governed by the existing reverse charge mechanism till further orders..The Bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Pratibha M Singh passed this order while hearing the plea filed by Advocate JK Mittal asking, among other things, whether all legal services provided by legal practitioners and firms would be governed by the reverse charge mechanism under the new GST regime..Read the GST Council’s Decisions list here: