Personal experience: how to get a tax deduction on a mortgage?

Initial data: in 2014, my wife and I bought a two-room apartment in a new building in the city of Lobnya for 3.9 million rubles. 800 thousand rubles were not enough for the purchase, another 500 thousand were needed for repairs. In total, we borrowed 1.3 million rubles. at Sberbank at a rate of 12% per annum (12.75% including annuity payments). The house was completed in July 2014.

You can submit documents to the tax office the next year after purchasing real estate. When it comes to a new building, everything is the same, but the starting point is the date of commissioning of the house. For example, in 2014 the house began to be occupied, in 2015 you can apply for a deduction.

Where to go?

You can receive a tax deduction at the tax office at the place of official registration. “Registering” in a new building is problematic. For this you need a certificate of ownership. You can apply for a certificate after registering the house with the cadastral register - this takes the developer from several months to a year. In general, not soon.

I am registered in Orekhovo-Zuevo near Moscow, my wife is registered in Kazan. These are the cities you need to contact. There is no need to go at all. Documents can be sent by mail even by regular letter.

How much will they return?

Each real estate buyer can return 13% of the cost of housing, but not more than 260 thousand rubles. Even if the apartment costs 7 million rubles, the state will transfer only 260 thousand rubles. In this case, the size of official income is very important. If it is 15 thousand rubles. per month, then only 180 thousand rubles will accumulate over the year. - they will return 13% (23.4 thousand rubles). The balance will be carried over to next year.

If the buyer of the property does not have an official income, then a tax deduction will not be given.

What else should you consider when filling out the declaration?

A citizen should remember about supporting documents if he fills out a tax return in order to receive a tax deduction. Each deduction implies its own list of documents, without which the inspector will refuse it. Therefore, it is worth remembering all the documentation and the tax refund application. The tax office will check it for up to 3 – 4 months.

If a resident paid for his education, treatment, and replenished his IIS over the previous year, then he only needs to submit one return, in which he will claim several tax deductions. You do not need to file a tax return for each deduction.

You should not indicate all sources of income if they are not needed to receive a tax deduction. The Tax Code of the Russian Federation allows not to indicate in the declaration income on which the tax is fully withheld and does not interfere with receiving a tax deduction.

If the declaration is submitted, and the applicant only later discovers an error, then nothing can be changed in it. He must resubmit a corrected version.

What documents are needed for tax deduction?

1. On the first working day of the new year, we went to our accounting departments at our place of work to get a 2-NDFL certificate, which indicates the income received for the previous year.

2. Next you need to fill out a tax return in form 3-NDFL. For many people this is very difficult. For help, you can contact specialists who will fill out the document for a small fee. The easiest way is to wait for your personal account to be updated on the nalog.ru website (the password for it must be obtained in advance from any tax office using your passport).

Usually, by mid-January, a special program or online service appears on the tax service website that allows you to fill out 3-NDFL for the past year. The completed form is exported to excel or pdf, printed and signed on each sheet.

3. The following papers are also needed:

• a copy of the apartment purchase and sale agreement;
• a copy of the apartment acceptance certificate (for new buildings);
• a copy of the loan agreement (if the property was purchased with a mortgage);
• a copy of the receipt for the transfer of funds to the account of the real estate seller;
• a copy of the marriage certificate (if the property is acquired as joint property);
• a written statement on the distribution of the amount of property deduction between spouses. It states that the tax base for deduction is divided into such and such parts. For example, in my case, with the cost of an apartment being 3.9 million rubles, my wife set herself 1.9 million rubles, and I set myself 2 million rubles. From these amounts everyone will get 13% back.

4. There can be not one deduction, but several. Including for treatment or educational services in state-licensed institutions. In 2014, I took courses in English. During the year I collected checks for payment of services. The result was 35,960 rubles. – from them I asked for 13% (4675 rubles). I made a photocopy of the agreement with the courses, as well as a copy of all receipts on one sheet. I attached these documents to the assembled package, and previously indicated information about tuition fees in the tax return.

I took the collected documents to my tax office in person. I took advantage of the fact that there was a reception there on Saturday. The wife sent the papers by registered mail. Two weeks later, information about registered declarations appeared in personal accounts on nalog.ru.

There is no need to collect this pile of documents again in subsequent years. They will already be on your file. All you need is a new tax return, a 2-NDFL income certificate and a certificate of payment of mortgage interest.

Interest deduction for refinancing (loan refinancing)

If you refinance a loan with another bank, you can receive a deduction for interest on both the original and the new loan (clause 4, clause 1, article 220 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation). At the same time, it is important that the new agreement clearly states that it was issued to refinance a previous targeted loan.

Example: Golovanov I.V. I bought an apartment in 2019 worth 3 million rubles (of which 1 million rubles were my own funds, and 2 million rubles were borrowed). In 2021, he refinanced the loan with another bank. Then, upon receipt of the interest deduction, Golovanov I.V. will be able to take into account the interest paid on the first and second loans.

How much to wait?

The tax office has three months to review the declaration. The period begins to run from the moment the documents are registered. In the past, many people said that the starting point was the date the papers were sent by mail. In practice this turned out not to be the case. Sent. The envelope lay in line for a week to be opened and only then was it added to the database.

Miracles are rare, so the tax office is unlikely to surprise you with a quick response. Two months later they remembered about us. They called me on my mobile phone and asked me to correct several numbers in the 3-NDFL declaration as quickly as possible, and also to attach another copy of some document. Fortunately, you can log back into your personal account, correct it, print it again and mail it. The deadline continues to tick at this time. For violating it, the inspector will have problems.

A few days before the deadline, the audit was completed, and the amount of the tax deduction was confirmed. We learned about this on the website nalog.ru, checking it every day.

Is it worth using services for filling out and sending a declaration?

The tax office carefully checks all the data that a resident submits to receive a deduction. Because of one minor mistake, inspectors may refuse to return the money, and then the citizen will have to submit documents and fill out the declaration again, waiting several months for inspection. And even then it is not a fact that the person did everything right.

In order not to have to worry about filling out and to avoid possible errors and loss of time, you can use the services of agencies that fill out and send the documentation. Below are some examples of companies with their services and prices for them.

Not everyone can figure out how to fill out a declaration, so people turn to intermediaries. But even in this case, there is no guarantee of successfully obtaining a tax deduction, since there are scammers posing as experts. They will take money to fill out, submit, send, and in the end the tax office will refuse the deduction. Then the applicant will waste not only time, but also money.

How to receive the money?

After that, run again. Now you need to quickly fill out an application for a refund. Everything is simple in it: it indicates from whom, where, the amount of return and the details of the bank account to which the confirmed amount should be transferred.

The paper is sent to the tax office. It can be attached immediately when sending all documents, but within three months the refund amount may be adjusted or the bank in which the account is opened may change.

As soon as the application for a refund is registered with the tax office, a new 30 days begin to count (a month, as stated in the Tax Code), during which the inspectorate must transfer the money. My wife received a joyful text message about the receipt of funds on her bank card account two weeks later, and I received it after two and a half.

Conclusion

Let us briefly summarize the review article:

1. A tax deduction can be received by a citizen of the Russian Federation who paid personal income tax for one of his types of income for the previous year.
2. Tax deductions can be: property, social, professional, investment, standard.
3. The tax deduction can be paid by the tax office by transferring money to an account or by the employer, who will not withhold personal income tax from the salary.
4. To receive most deductions, you need to submit a 3-NDFL declaration with accompanying documents. From 2022, recipients of investment and property deductions are exempt from submitting documentation.
5. For most tax deductions, the return is filed in the year following the year in which the expenses were incurred.
6. The period for checking the declaration and returning money to the tax office can be up to 4 months.
7. You can use the services of intermediaries to file your tax return. But not all of them will provide the desired result.

And another 13%

Every borrower and co-borrower has the right to receive a deduction from the interest paid on a home loan. To receive these amounts, you must annually obtain a certificate from the bank about the interest paid on the loan. The information is indicated in the tax return.

However, as I was told by the tax office, the “main” tax deduction for the apartment will be returned first, and only when it is exhausted will it come to interest compensation. That is, I must first receive 260 thousand rubles. and only then 13% of the interest paid on the loan. In this case, the share of the payment will be taken from the application for the distribution of the tax deduction between the spouses. For example, we paid interest for 150 thousand rubles, and our shares in the loan are 55% and 45% - thus, we will receive 10,725 rubles each. and 8,775 rub. respectively.

Good news for those who took out a loan for 20-30 years: the maximum amount of interest paid, from which 13% is returned, is limited to 3 million rubles. This means that borrowers can additionally return another 390 thousand rubles. Together with the “main” tax deduction, the result is 650 thousand rubles. Every real estate buyer can count on this amount with a mortgage. It can be returned either for one property or for several (if they were purchased later than January 1, 2014).

For what loans and borrowings can you get an interest deduction?

A deduction for credit interest can be obtained not only under mortgage agreements, but for any targeted loan aimed at the purchase/construction of housing (clause 4, clause 1, article 220 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

For example, if you took out a loan from an employer and the contract states that the loan will be used to purchase a specific apartment, then you will be able to receive a tax deduction on the loan interest paid. If there is no such entry in the agreement, then despite the fact that you spent the loan on the purchase of housing, you will not be able to receive a deduction (Letter of the Ministry of Finance dated 04/08/2016 No. 03-04-05/20053).

Example: In 2021, Shilova K.O. I took out a loan from an organization to buy an apartment. The agreement clearly states that the loan was spent on the purchase of a specific apartment, therefore Shilova K.O. will be able to receive a credit interest deduction.

Example: In 2021 Tamarina E.M. I bought an apartment for 2 million rubles with a loan for consumer purposes in the amount of 1 million rubles. Since the loan is not intended for the purchase of an apartment, Tamarina E.M. will be able to receive a property deduction in the amount of 2 million rubles (for a return of 260 thousand rubles), but will not be able to take advantage of the interest deduction.

You don't have to go to the tax office

You can also receive a deduction at your place of work. To do this, you do not need to wait until the year following the purchase of the apartment. The order is as follows:

• write a free-form application to your tax office requesting a tax deduction;
• prepare copies of documents evidencing the purchase of real estate;
• submit the application and copies of documents to the tax office;
• after 30 days, receive a notification from the inspectorate about the right to deduct;
• submit a notification to the accounting department at the place of work.

In this case, the tax deduction is returned in parts - it simply will not be withheld from subsequent wages, that is, during the period of the refund, your salary will increase by 13%. Not everyone is comfortable with this.

Summary

1. Each person can return up to 260 thousand rubles. from the cost of the apartment, as well as up to 390 thousand rubles. from interest paid on the mortgage.
2. It is beneficial to receive a tax deduction as quickly as possible, since money depreciates every year.
3. The higher the official salary, the faster you can get money.
4. The tax deduction can be returned through the tax office or at your place of work.
5. If you submit all documents to the tax office in January, then in May the tax office will transfer the requested amount to your account.