7th Pay Commission: Central government employees can claim HRA benefit by rent, know how

The 7^th Pay Commission gives certain relief to the central government employees in payment of house rent allowance. This is done so they can easily afford to get house on rent.

All central employees can claim the HRA benefit by paying rent to their wife. This will help you to get tax benefit as well. While it isn’t easy to claim HRA via your spouse, here are some things that you should know about getting house rent allowance.

Legal Rent Agreement

In case you pay rent for your wife, you have to enter into a legal rent agreement with her. To claim the HRA, you have to retain the rent receipt. You have to submit the Form 12BB, the rent agreement and the rent receipts to your employer.

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The rent receipt must include the tenant’s name, landlord’s name, amount of rent, date of payment, period of rent, address of the house, signature of the landlord, PAN of the landlord and revenue stamp among other details.

It is important to note that the HRA allowance can be claimed only if the rent is more than Rs 5,000.

The husband shouldn’t own the house.

To claim the HRA, the house shouldn’t not be owned by the husband, rather it should be in the name of the wife only. The husband shouldn’t own any part of the house.

Notably, the income of the wife must be mentioned while claiming for the ITR even if she her earnings are less than the basic exemption limit.

Income source of the wife

Also, all details about the source of income of the wife must be mentioned so that it can be clearly stated that the HRA is not being claimed to get tax benefit. Besides this, the taxpayer should also provide information about tax return.