A: The purchase of the residential property is one of the most important and long-term decision and there are several tax aspects. There is a new requirement now from June 1, 2013 that in case you are purchasing a property which is more than Rs 50 lakh, you need to deduct tax at the rate of 1 percent, this is a new requirement which you need to careful about. The second thing you need to consider is the stamp duty valuation of the property. If it is less than your agreement value then the difference will be deemed to be your income. The third important aspect is in case you have sold a house property which you have been holding for more than three years; in the last two years if you have sold such a high property or if you are going to sell your existing house property in the next one year then you can claim the exemption of that long-term capital gain against this purchase of new house property. Similarly if you have sold any shares of unlisted companies or if you have sold jewellery, which is a long-term asset, for that also you can claim the capital exemption so it can have lot of tax savings in all this respect. The fourth point is if you are making any borrowings for the purpose of purchasing house property then you can claim the interest as a deduction up to Rs 1.5 lakh. In the recent Budget there was an additional interest deduction of Rs 1 lakh, which was introduced under section 80ee but that will not be applicable in your case because in that case one of the conditions is that the house property should not be more than Rs 40 lakh. In your case you are looking at a house property which is Rs 55-60 lakh. The last important point you must be aware of is wealth tax, which you are able to claim exemption for one house but if you own more than one house then there is a wealth tax under rate of 1 percent and if you not let out the property then the wealth tax is applicable.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 11:27:11 +0000