Budget 2017: How house and jewellery buying could become easier

REAL ESTATE: No  other sector has been severely impacted than the real estate sector post demonetization

Experts believe that more tax benefits should be extended to buyers, especially first timers.  During the budget 2016, future home owners were given an additional tax exemption of ₹50,000 for houses within the ₹50 lakh bracket along with a loan of ₹35 lakh.  There are similar hopes this year, too, however, home buyers hope this would be more applicable to Tier 1 metro dwellers as the previous budget was more favourable to the Tier 2 and 3 cities.

 Vikas Vasal, National Leader-Tax, Grant Thornton India LLP, believes that in keeping with the government’s plan to provide housing for everyone, the budget could “increase the tax deduction for interest paid on housing loan from ₹ 2 lakh to ₹ 3 lakh. This will also provide an immediate boost to the banking services sector, which is flush with funds post demonetization and looking at avenues to lend money to the masses,” reports The Financial Express.

The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana scheme had announced an “interest subsidy of 3% would be applicable on loans of up to ₹12 lakh and 4% on loans of up to Rs 9 lakh.” However, it was ambiguous as to who exactly would benefit from this. So, clarity on this would be expected from Budget 2017 announcement.

Besides this, experts hope that a single window clearance will be implemented as this would make property far more affordable. Doing so, would have a number of benefits like fewer delays and affordable housing

JEWELLERY: G.V. Sreedhar Chairman, All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation tells Economic Times, that while cashless transactions have picked up, the requirement for PAN for purchases over ₹2 lakhs has been a problem. He says, “This is not required since credit and debit cards are KYC compliant and the PAN details are already captured by the cashless transaction.
 

• Budget 2017
• house buying
• jewellery
• experts