Confused how home loans can get you Tax benefits?

Naiknavare Developers - Pune

In a country like India, where the growing population is a major concern today, buying homes comes out to be an equally critical issue. Everybody desires to have a home of their own. In such a scenario, most of the people who are salaried employees depend upon the home loans for buying themselves their first house. However, not everyone knows how tax benefits can be claimed when they buy a property.

Quite often, questions like whether an income tax benefit can be obtained when you already possess multiple properties, out of which some are rented out, come up while a person is about to purchase a property and is thinking of applying for a home loan.

With a home loan you are entitled to pay a generous amount as an interest over a period of time which has dual benefits. We shall discuss a few points that would be helpful for you in availing the income tax benefits with more efficiency.

• House Rent Allowance (HRA) Exemption

If you have applied for a home loan for a property that you want to buy and you are staying in the property, then you are eligible to claim tax benefits on both, the principal and the interest of the home loan that you have applied for.

Regarding the actual HRA from the employer/ the company, according to section 10(13A) of Income Tax Act, 1961 read with rule 2A of Income Tax rules, you are exempted from tax with one of the following three conditions where the value considered for the actual HRA exemption will be the minimum value among the below mentioned figures:

• Actual HRA received
• Rent Paid in excess of 10% of salary (Basic + DA)
• 40% of salary (50% in case of metro city) where salary includes Basic + DA

Hence, it is important to have clear information about each of these so as to claim your HRA.  We shall understand this with the help of an example in our next post as the benefits do not end here. Stay tuned!