Tax incentive for affordable housing

In order to provide an impetus to the ‘Housing for all’ objective of the Government and to enable the home buyer to have low-cost funds at his disposal, it is proposed to insert a new section 80EEA in the Act so as to provide a deduction in respect of interest up to one lakh fifty thousand rupees on loan taken for residential house property from any financial institution subject to the following conditions:

(i) loan has been sanctioned by a financial institution during the period beginning on the 1st April, 2019 to 31st March 2020.

(ii) the stamp duty value of house property does not exceed forty-five lakh rupees;

(iii) assessee does not own any residential house property on the date of sanction of loan.

It is also proposed that where a deduction under this section is allowed for any interest, deduction shall not be allowed in respect of such interest under any other provisions of the Act for the same or any other assessment year.

This amendment will take effect from 1st April, 2020 and will accordingly apply in relation to assessment year 2020-21 and subsequent assessment years.

The existing provisions of the section 80-IBA of the Act, inter alia, provide that where the gross total income of an assessee includes any profits and gains derived from the business of developing and building housing projects, there shall, subject to certain conditions, be allowed, a deduction of an amount equal to hundred per cent of the profits and gains derived from such business.

With a view to align the definition of "affordable housing" under section 80-IBA with the definition under GST Act, it is proposed to amend the said section so as to modify certain conditions regarding the housing project approved on or after 1st day of September, 2019. The modified conditions are as under:

(i) the assessee shall be eligible for deduction under the section, in respect of a housing project if a residential unit in the housing project have carpet area not exceeding 60 square meter in metropolitan cities or 90 square meter in cities or towns other than metropolitan cities of Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi National Capital Region (limited to Delhi, Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon, Faridabad), Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai (whole of Mumbai Metropolitan Region); and

(ii) the stamp duty value of such residential unit in  the housing project shall not exceed forty five lakh rupees;

These amendments will take effect from 1st April, 2020 and will, accordingly, apply in relation to assessment year 2020-21 and subsequent assessment years.

[Clauses 25 & 26]

 

 

 

Tax incentive for affordable housing expands interest deduction on home loans, subject to property value and ownership conditions. A new provision permits a deduction for interest on residential house loans from financial institutions, subject to conditions: loan sanctioned within the prescribed fiscal window, stamp duty value of the property below a prescribed ceiling, and the borrower owning no residential property on sanction date. The deduction is exclusive and cannot be claimed under any other provision for the same interest. Parallel amendments amend the affordable-housing deduction by capping carpet area by urban category and imposing the same stamp duty valuation limit for qualifying housing projects approved on or after the specified date; both amendments take effect from the same fiscal commencement and apply to ensuing assessment years.