Any property, which is not let out and is lying vacant can be claimed as self-occupied. Under the new tax regime, rebate and eligibility threshold income are Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 7 lakh, respectively. Senior citizens have to pay advance only for income taxable under the head “Profits and Gains of business of profession”
I have a self-occupied house, which I have declared in my income tax return (ITR). My wife is a homemaker and stays with me and has no other income except for bank interest. She is also a single owner of a small house in a town 50 km away from where we stay. It was vacant for the whole of last year. When my wife files her ITR this year, can she claim her house as self-occupied or will it be considered as deemed let out and the net annual value (NAV) calculated accordingly? Answer: Under the provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961, an individual and a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) are allowed to have maximum two houses as self-occupied and the annual value of both the self-occupied house properties are taken as nil for income tax purposes. In case a taxpayer owns and occupies more than two house properties, the taxpayer has to choose any of two such properties as self-occupied, and other self-occupied properties are deemed to have been let out on which notional rent has to be offered for tax. In order to claim any property as self-occupied, the taxpayer need not actually occupy the same for…
