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LTA exemption: What is Leave Travel Allowance and can you claim it at the time of filing your income tax return?
The Income-tax Act, 1961 offers salaried individuals several tax exemptions, beyond deductions like LIC premiums and housing loan interest. While deductions reduce your total taxable income, exemptions exclude specific types of income from being taxed altogether. This allows employers to design an employee's Cost to Company (CTC) package in a tax-efficient manner.One such exemption available to the salaried class under the law and widely used by employers is Leave Travel Allowance (LTA)/Leave Travel Concession (LTC). LTA exemption is also available for LTA received from former employer w.r.t travel after the retirement of service or termination of service. LTA can be claimed for any two years in a block of 4 years. The current block year for claiming LTA is 2022 to 2025.
What is Leave Travel Allowance (LTA)?
Leave Travel Allowance/Leave Travel Concession is a type of allowance given by an employer to their employee for travelling to any place in India: either on leave, after retirement or after the termination of his service. Though it sounds simple, many factors need to be kept in mind before you plan to claim an LTA exemption. Income tax provision has laid down rules for claiming exemption of LTA which are provided below.
Who Can Claim LTA?
Only individuals can claim LTA for travel costs incurred for themselves and their family (Spouse, children, wholly or mainly dependent siblings, parents)
Conditions for Claiming LTA
Let us understand the conditions/requirements for claiming the exemption:
Individual must be an employee and should have an LTA component in CTC.
Actual journey is a must to claim the exemption
Only domestic travel is considered for exemption, i.e., travel within India. No international travel is covered under LTA/LTC
The exemption for travel is available for the employee alone or with his family, where ‘family’ includes the employee’s spouse, children and wholly or mainly dependent parents, brothers, and sisters of the employee.
Further, such an exemption is not available for more than two children of an employee born after 1 October 1998. Children born before 1 October 1998 do not have any restrictions. Further, in cases of multiple births on a second occasion after having one child is also not affected by this restriction.
Amount of LTA/LTC Exemption
The exemption is available only on the actual travel costs i.e., the air, rail or bus fare incurred by the employee. No expenses such as local conveyance, sightseeing, hotel accommodation, food, etc., are eligible for this exemption. The exemption is also limited to LTA provided by the employer.
For example, if LTA granted by the employer is Rs 30,000, and the actual travel cost incurred by the employee is Rs 20,000, then only Rs 20,000 will be available as an exemption and the balance of Rs 10,000 would be included in taxable salary income
Source: Times of India
