Capital Gains Exemption Calculator – Sec 54, 54F, 54EC

Section 54: sell a residential house, buy or build another – exemption up to the gain. Section 54F: sell any other long-term asset, put the entire net sale proceeds into one house – exemption proportionate. Section 54EC: sell land or building, park up to Rs 50 lakh of the gain in REC, PFC, IRFC or HUDCO bonds within six months. All three are for the new-house-or-bonds route in India and need long-term assets.

Under section 54, the capital gain. Under section 54F, the entire NET SALE CONSIDERATION – the sale price minus transfer expenses, not just the gain; anything less gives only a proportionate exemption. Under section 54EC, the gain itself, but never more than Rs 50 lakh counts. The planner shows your exact shortfall for a full claim.

From FY 2023-24, the cost of the new house beyond Rs 10 crore is ignored – for section 54 that caps the exemption at Rs 10 crore, and in the 54F formula the numerator is capped at Rs 10 crore. CGAS deposits are capped by the same reference, so parking more than Rs 10 crore does not help either.

Yes, under section 54 only, if the capital gain does not exceed Rs 2 crore – and it is a ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME option: exercise it for any year and it is gone forever. The test applies to the gain, not the price of the houses. Section 54F remains a one-house section; the Delhi High Court reiterated in 2025 that multiple independent units do not qualify unless they form one integrated home.

For land or building bought before 23 July 2024 and sold by a resident individual or HUF, tax is the LOWER of 12.5 percent on the non-indexed gain and 20 percent on the indexed gain. The catch nobody computes: exemptions apply inside EACH computation separately, and a partial exemption can flip which side wins. Also, the amount you must reinvest for a full exemption is always driven by the larger NON-indexed gain – the 20 percent option only caps the tax, it does not shrink the gain. This planner runs both legs with exemptions recomputed in each.

Sections 54, 54F and 54EC all apply to non-residents (the new house must be in India). But the 20 percent indexed option does not – NRIs pay 12.5 percent flat on post-23-July-2024 sales. The basic-exemption adjustment against LTCG is also residents-only. And the buyer must deduct TDS under section 195 on the full sale price unless you obtain a lower-deduction certificate – see our NRI income tax calculator for that computation.

Six months from the date of transfer – the planner prints your exact date. Eligible issuers today are REC, PFC, IRFC and HUDCO (added by CBDT Notification 31/2025 for bonds issued from 1 April 2025; NHAI stopped issuing in 2022). Current coupon is 5.25 percent, taxable, with a five-year lock-in. The Rs 50 lakh cap applies per transfer ACROSS the year of sale and the next financial year combined – the old trick of splitting Rs 50 lakh plus Rs 50 lakh over a February sale died in 2014.

No. Transferring or converting the bonds – and even taking a loan or advance against them – within five years revives the exempted gain as long-term capital gain of that year. The bonds are non-transferable and non-negotiable by design; treat the Rs 50 lakh as untouchable for five years.

Deposit the unutilised amount in a Capital Gains Account Scheme account before the section 139(1) due date for the year of sale – 31 July 2026 for most individuals selling in FY 2025-26 (if CBDT extends the due date, the CGAS deadline extends with it). High Courts have accepted deposits made up to the belated-return date under 139(4) – Rajesh Kumar Jalan, Jagriti Aggarwal – but that is litigation territory, not planning. Type A is a savings-style account, Type B a term deposit; withdrawals must be spent on the house within 60 days; since the 2025 amendments you can deposit by UPI, NEFT or RTGS at a wider set of banks.

Whatever is unutilised when three years from the sale expire is taxed as capital gain of that year – fully for section 54, proportionately for 54F. One humane exception: if the depositor dies, the unutilised balance is NOT taxable in the hands of the legal heirs – CBDT Circular 743 of 1996 treats it as estate, not income.

The High Courts are split. Delhi and Madras allow it where the entire funding came from the seller (Kamal Wahal, Ravinder Kumar Arora, Natarajan); Rajasthan and Bombay have refused it. There is no Supreme Court ruling. Practical advice: buy in your own name or jointly with your spouse – the exemption survives joint ownership where you funded it, and you avoid the dispute entirely.

Booking an under-construction flat is treated as CONSTRUCTION, giving you the three-year window (CBDT Circulars 471/1986 and 672/1993 on allotment). If the builder delays beyond three years, a consistent ITAT line saves the exemption where you invested the money substantially in time and the delay is the builder’s fault (Seetha Subramanian and later cases) – keep payment proofs, and note it is a fact-specific defence, not a statutory shield.

Under section 54, the exemption claimed is deducted from the new house’s cost – and because you held it under 24 months, the whole gain turns SHORT-TERM, taxed at slab rates. Under section 54F the mechanics differ: the old exempted gain comes back as long-term capital gain of the year of sale, on top of the gain on the new house itself. 54F also has separate traps – buying another house within two years or constructing one within three years of the original sale revives the exempted gain.

Yes. Section 54 plus 54EC on one house gain, and 54F plus 54EC on one land gain, are both settled combinations – different slices of the same gain. Gains from two different assets can even be claimed against the SAME new house under 54 and 54F together. From tax year 2026-27 the sections become 82 (old 54), 85 (54EC) and 86 (54F) under the Income-tax Act 2025 – the rules themselves are unchanged, including the caps and windows used by this planner.