new delhi a panel of state ministers on friday favoured lowering gst on underconstruction residential properties to 5 per cent from 12 per cent currentlythe group of ministers gom under gujarat deputy chief minister nitin patel was set up last month to analyse tax rates and issueschallenges being faced by the real estate sector under the goods and services tax gst regimein its first meeting the gom also favoured slashing gst on affordable housing from 8 per cent to 3 per centofficials said the report of the gom would be finalised within a week and would be placed before the gst council in its next meetingthe gom favoured lowering gst rates on residential houses to 5 per cent without input tax credit and to 3 per cent for those under affordable housing an official saidcurrently gst is levied at 12 per cent with input tax credit itc on payments made for underconstruction property or readytomovein flats where completion certificate has not been issued at the time of salethe effective pregst tax incidence on such housing property was 1518 per centgst however is not levied on buyers of real estate properties for which completion certificate has been issued at the time of salethere have been complaints that builders are not passing on the itc benefit to consumers by way of reduction in price of the property after the rollout of gstthe gst council headed by union finance minister and comprising his state counterparts had on january 10 decided to set up a gom to look into ways to boost housing sector under gstthe other ministers in the 7member gom are finance ministers of maharashtra sudhir mungantiwar karnataka krishna byre gowda kerala thomas isaac punjab manpreet singh badal uttar pradesh rajesh agarwal and goa panchayat minister mauvin godinhoapart from patel and gondinho fridays gom meeting was attended by mungantiwar and badal through video conferencing also other state ministers who are part of the panel too would be giving their views in a couple of days