NEW DELHI (INDIA): Duville Estates Director Tushad Dubash said that the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is a people’s budget where Affordable Housing has been the focus and will be given infra status.
“This bodes well for home seekers living in tier II and tier III cities, which is also in line with government’s vision of ‘Housing for All 2022,” he said.
“Also, since affordable housing will now be given infra status, we can look at funding through insurance companies, which is a huge alternate sector and opens up a new avenue for real estate funding,” he added.
“Demonetization has impacted the real estate in the short term. But on the flip side, we see banks flushed with funds and given the surplus liquidity that they presently have, we look forward to banks further lowering their home loan interest rates to customers,” said Dubash.
“The reduction of the period for long term capital gains tax coupled with reintroduction of capital gains tax saving investments will attract more landowners to capitalize on their land holdings, thereby bringing more land into development,” added Dubash.
“The Prime Minister recently announced a subvention scheme which is tailor made in attracting a wider audience base of home buyers. Huge allocations proposed for the housing and infrastructure sectors will set the pace of housing our populace at a much quicker pace and developing our infrastructure to align with our vision of ‘Housing For All 2022,” he said.
Affordable Housing will be given Infrastructure Status
The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs,Arun Jaitley while presenting the General Budget 2017-18 in Parliament said that affordable housing will now be given infrastructure status, which will enable these projects to avail the associated benefits.
The National Housing Bank (NHB) will refinance individual housing loans of about Rs. 20,000 crore in 2017-18. Thanks to the surplus liquidity created by demonetisation, the Banks have already started reducing their lending rates, including those for housing. The Finance Minister Shri Jaitley in his Budget Speech said that in addition, interest subvention for housing loans has also been announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
GST Council has finalised its recommendations on almost all the issues based on consensus
The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs,Jaitley said that the GST Council has finalised its recommendations on almost all the issues based on consensus after spirited debate and discussions.
The Finance Minister said that the Government on its part has promptly given effect to various provisions of the Constitutional Amendment Act, including constitution of the GST Council.
The GST Council held 9 meetings to discuss various issues relating to GST, including broad contours of the GST rate structure, threshold exemption and parameters for composition scheme, details for compensation to States due to implementation of GST, examination of draft model GST law, draft IGST law and the Compensation Law and administrative mechanism for GST.
He said the preparation of IT system for GST is also on schedule.
The Finance Minister Jaitley in his Budget Speech further said that the extensive reach-out efforts to trade and industry for GST will start from 1st April, 2017 to make them aware of the new taxation system.
He said that since the enactment of the Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, there has been substantial progress on preparatory work towards ushering in GST which is by far the biggest tax reform since Independence.
“Several teams of officers both from the States and Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC)have been working to give finishing touch to the Model GST law, rules and other details, he added.
Jaitley said that the Government, through the Central Board of Excise & Customs (CBEC) shall continue to strive to achieve the goal of implementation of GST as per schedule without compromising the spirit of co-operative federalism.
He added that the implementation of GST is likely to bring more taxes both to Central and State Governments because of widening of tax net.
The Finance Minister Jaitley stated that not many changes have been proposed in current regime of Excise & Service Tax in the Budget proposals since they are to be replaced by GST soon.