How to get a tax deduction for the purchase of an apartment

Today, many taxpayers do not know how to get a tax deduction for the purchase of an apartment and therefore miss the opportunity to get back a certain part of the money paid as personal income tax.

You can read about how to exercise the right to receive a tax credit, what is its size, as well as some other details, in this article.

Since the deduction for an apartment implies a decrease in the size of the taxable base, it is provided exclusively to those individuals who are taxpayers.

All other apartment owners who do not work officially and do not give the 13% of their wages required by law to the state cannot take advantage of this kind of tax rebate.

IMPORTANT! If a taxpayer became the owner of real estate, including an apartment, then in case of any questions, he must be guided by Article 220, which is part of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation.

Who is entitled to a refund of personal income tax for an apartment

Before proceeding with the process of registering a deduction, we strongly recommend that you figure out whether you are eligible for it in accordance with the provisions of tax legislation. Income tax refunds for the purchase of property are provided to the following persons:

• Individuals who own the apartment;
• The husband / wife of the owner of the property, who is considered by law to be the owner of the property;
• Father / mother of an individual who is the owner of real estate, who at this point in time is under eighteen years of age.

It should be noted that the above persons can reduce their tax base only if they have not previously used the property deduction.

When to apply for a deduction for an apartment

After the buyer of the property is convinced that he really is eligible for the tax rebate, you can move on to the next step - checking the deadlines. Income tax is returned far from immediately after the purchase, but only next year.

If the taxpayer draws up and submits documents to the tax office in the same year in which the apartment was purchased, then no monetary compensation will be charged.

However, the question immediately arises for the next year, which has come after what specific date, you can start filling out the documentation.

The answer is quite simple - after the date of obtaining the right to ownership of the apartment, and if the housing is only being built and belongs to the shared type of property, then after a year of issuance to the taxpayer of an act confirming the acceptance and transfer of housing.

The procedure for obtaining a tax deduction when buying an apartment

To begin with, an individual applying for a property tax rebate will need to prepare a basic package of documents, without which no type of deduction can be obtained.

As a rule, this is a declaration containing all information on income and filled in according to the 3-NDFL model, a report certificate of tax contributions based on the 2-NDFL model, a statement containing a taxpayer's request for the return of personal income tax for an apartment, as well as copies of some pages of the passport.

The next step is the collection of documentation that is directly related to the purchased property. The claimant for the deduction will need the following papers:

1. Contract. When buying a home, in order for this transaction to be considered legitimate, a purchase and sale agreement must be drawn up, which contains all the conditions for transferring property to the new owner, as well as the exact value of the property;
2. Ownership. As mentioned earlier, the document certifying the receipt of ownership is fundamental for the return of income tax on property;
3. Acceptance certificate. This type of document will be needed if the purchased apartment is in shared ownership. Also in a similar situation, in addition to the act, you must have an agreement on participation in shares;
4. Loan agreement. Most individuals decide to purchase an apartment using a mortgage. In this case, you need to have a loan agreement drawn up with a specific bank, as well as all the necessary documents confirming the fact of repayment of both the loan itself and the interest payments on it.

After the owner of the apartment has all the documentation necessary for the deduction, and it must be properly executed, he can safely transfer these papers to the tax authority. And after the expiration of the thirty-day period required for a desk audit, the monetary compensation will be transferred to the taxpayer's account.

Tax deduction amount

In order to correctly determine the amount by which the tax base of an individual who has become the owner of an apartment will decrease, you first need to find out the exact amount of his expenses.

In addition to the price of the apartment, which is displayed in the purchase and sale agreement, you can include in the property tax discount:

• Repair costs. If a taxpayer purchases housing in a new building and the documents for it indicate that the object needs repair, then the total amount of the deduction can also include the cost of purchasing building materials and money paid to employees for finishing the premises;
• Interest payments. If the property is taken over by the taxpayer with the help of a mortgage loan, then, as a rule, in addition to the cost established for the apartment, he is additionally obliged to pay interest on the loan. The cost of paying off this interest can also be taken into account when calculating the total cost of the apartment.

And now, to find out how much the tax deduction is when buying an apartment, you just need to take the amount of expenses spent on this object (in rubles) and calculate 13% from it.

Example # 1

An individual bought a one-room apartment for one and a half million rubles and spent an additional 200,000 on decorating the walls in it. Thus, the total amount of the deduction is 1,500,000 + 200,000 = 1,700,000 rubles, and the monetary compensation that will be returned to the taxpayer is 13% of 1,700,000 rubles, namely 221,000 rubles.

However, it will not be possible to receive property monetary compensation immediately, but only in parts. The amount of the part that can be returned in a year mainly depends on the amount of the amount given by the owner of the home for personal income tax. For example, if for a year the buyer of an apartment paid 50,000 rubles for tax collection, then he will be able to receive no more than this amount for this period.

Example No. 2

The taxpayer became the legal owner of a three-room apartment, the cost of which is seven million rubles.

In addition, the owner of the property had to pay for the installation of water supply and electricity, which took another 350,000 rubles. As usual, we calculate the amount of the deduction - 7,000,000 + 350,000 = 7,350,000 rubles.

IMPORTANT! If, when calculating the tax rebate for an apartment, you get an amount in excess of two million rubles, you should take into account the fact that tax legislation has a limit on it. That is, if the costs are more than two million, then the maximum amount of money that can be obtained is 260,000 rubles (since this is 13% of 2,000,000 rubles).

Thus, in this case, it is inappropriate to take the amount of 7 350 000 rubles for calculating 13%. Since the claimant for the deduction will be able to return back no more than 260,000 rubles.