Increase in safe harbour limit of 10% for home buyers and real estate developers selling such residential units

The Budget 2021 has made following changes,

Section 43CA of the Act, inter alia, provides that where the consideration declared to be received or accruing as a result of the transfer of land or building or both, is less than the value adopted or assessed or assessable by any authority of a State Government (i.e. stamp valuation authority) for the purpose of payment of stamp duty in respect of such transfer, the value so adopted or assessed or assessable shall for the purpose of computing profits and gains from transfer of such assets, be deemed to be the full value of consideration.

The said section also provide that where the value adopted or assessed or assessable by the authority for the purpose of payment of stamp duty does not exceed one hundred and ten per cent of the consideration received or accruing as a result of the transfer, the consideration so received or accruing as a result of the transfer shall, for the purposes of computing profits and gains from transfer of such asset, be deemed to be the full value of the consideration.

Clause (x) of sub-section (2) of section 56 of the Act, inter alia, provides that where any person receives, in any previous year, from any person or persons on or after 1st April, 2017, any immovable property, for a consideration which is less than the stamp duty value of the property by an amount exceeding fifty thousand rupees, the stamp duty value of such property as exceeds such consideration shall be charged to tax under the head “income from other sources”.

It also provide that where the assessee receives any immovable property for a consideration and the stamp duty value of such property exceeds ten per cent of the consideration or fifty thousand rupees, whichever is higher, the stamp duty value of such property as exceeds such consideration shall be charged to tax under the head “Income from other sources”.

In order to boost the demand in the real-estate sector and to enable the real-estate developers to liquidate their unsold inventory at a lower rate to home buyers, it is proposed to increase the safe harbour threshold from existing 10% to 20% under section 43CA of the Act, if the following conditions are satisfied:-

• The transfer of residential unit takes place during the period from 12th November, 2020 to 30th June, 2021
• The transfer is by way of first time allotment of the residential unit to any person
• The consideration received or accruing as a result of such transfer does not exceed two crore rupee

Further it is proposed to provide the consequential relief to buyers of these
residential units by way of amendment in clause (x) of sub-section (2) of section 56 of the Act by increasing the safe harbour from 10% to 20%. Accordingly, for these transactions, circle rate shall be deemed as sale/purchase consideration only if the variation between the agreement value and the circle rate is more than 20%.

These amendments will take effect from 1st April, 2021 and will accordingly apply to the assessment year 2021-22 and subsequent assessment years.