In a speech this past Monday February 28th, 2016 Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley presented his third budget. In his speech, Mr. Jaitley focused on what is commonly referred to as his big ticket reforms – reforms which are focused primarily providing relief for farmers under distress and on the rural sectors of the country.
To that end, Mr. Jaitley announced that the promotion of affordable housing is one of his “thrust areas”, meaning that this is a sector of the economy whereby he wishes to make a strong impact. As things now stand, people are able to deduct up to Rs 2,000,000 from their taxes for the interest that is paid on their home loans. That means that if you have a mortgage on your home and you pay up to Rs 2,000,000 in interest on that loan, you can take that Rs 2,000,000 off of your taxes and pay that much less in taxes. Well what Mr. Jaitley has now announced is that if you are a first time home buyer, you can deduct from the money you would be paying in taxes yet another Rs 50,000 that you pay in interest on your home mortgage. Stated in another way, if you are a first time home buyer and you pay Rs 2,050,000 in interest on your home mortgage and if the amount in taxes that you owe the government is Rs 2,050,000 – in theory – you would not have to pay any taxes at all. You are able to deduct from your taxes the amount that you pay in interest on your mortgage.
What does this mean for our freelancers on IndiaFreelancers.com? Well, what this means is that our freelancers are now able to purchase a home a little easier. Having and owning one’s home is a strong measure of security in this world – and we want that security for our programmers and other technical professionals on IndiaFreelancers.com. Therefore, we encourage our freelancers to please look into these new programs which were announced yesterday, February 28th, 2016. It may be that this may a great opportunity to purchase your first home and to make your freelancing on IndiaFreelancers.com a little more comfortable and stable.
Ranjiv P for IndiaFreelancers.com