Budget 2019: Seek incentives to boost the real estate

By Suresh Kumar A

The last interim budget bought cheers to the Indian real estate industry with a series of favourable initiatives along with new attractive incentives for homebuyers, that has given a strong push to the growth prospects of the sector. We hope that in the upcoming budget as well, the policies will be inclusive of provisions that will help in further strengthening the reality ecosystem in the country.

In a nutshell, a few key expectations from the industry from the upcoming budget are:

• To remove the ceiling in deduction available U/s 24 of the Income Tax Act, to the Individual towards payment of Interest on Housing Loans( Self Occupied Property) from the existing maximum ceiling of Rs.2,00,000/-.
• Increase in the limit of Deduction U/s 80C of the Income Tax Act., in respect of repayment of Housing Loan. At present the same is part of the overall limit of Rs.1,50,000/- and it is better to have separate deduction towards repayment of housing loan principal.
• Nationalized Banks must fund all the affordable housing projects registered under PMAY scheme compulsorily at a lower rate
• Reinstating Input Tax Credit (ITC) and further extending it to the commercial segment against GST payable on rent of the same project or any other building rent
• Abolition of tax on unsold inventory

The Indian real estate sector hopes that the upcoming budget will be a catalyst for strong economic development in the country which will, in turn, provide a significant boost to the industry.

Suresh Kumar A is Chief Financial Officer of Adarsh Group.