India Finance Bill 2020: Taxability of Dividend in hands of InvIT/ REIT Unitholders

The Finance Bill 2020 proposes to levy tax on the dividend paid by InvITs/ REITs to the unitholders in the hands of the unitholders, which was until this proposed amendment exempt from tax. An efficient tax structure provided under the Income Tax Act 1961 enabled the successful listing of two public InvITs in 2017, two privately placed but listed InvITs and India’s first REIT in April 2019 which attracted investment from large long-term foreign investors and also domestic institutional investors.