Circular No. 688

Section 80E l Repayment of Loan Taken for Higher Education

What this is

Circular No. 688 was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes on 23 August 1994. Its subject is Section 80E l Repayment of Loan Taken for Higher Education.

What it does

Clarifies that for the tax concession under section 80E, graduate or post-graduate studies in engineering include such studies in architecture.

Why it was issued

A doubt had been raised whether graduate or post-graduate courses in architecture are covered as a branch of engineering for section 80E.

Who it reaches

Individuals repaying a loan taken for higher education in architecture
Assessing Officers scrutinising a section 80E claim for an architecture course

The provisions it speaks to

Left, the provision of the Income-tax Act, 1961 as the instrument itself names it. Right, the section of the Income-tax Act, 2025 that the department’s own concordance maps it to — which is where the same ground is now covered.

Under the 1961 Act	Now
s.80E	s.129

The instrument, as the Board published it

The words below are the department’s own, reproduced from its published text. Where the department’s copy carried a publisher’s notes after the instrument, those are not reproduced.

SECTION 80E l REPAYMENT OF LOAN TAKEN FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
518. Whether graduate or post-graduate studies in Engineering would include studies in architecture
A doubt has been raised whether graduate or post-graduate courses in architecture would be covered as a branch of engineering for the purpose of the tax concession under section 80E of the Income-tax Act.
2. It is hereby clarified that, for the purposes of section 80E, graduate or post-graduate, studies in engineering would include such studies in architecture.

Circular : No. 688, dated 23-8-1994.

What to watch

The clarification is confined to architecture being read into engineering; it says nothing about any other course.
Section 80E as it stood then listed specified fields of study; the section was later recast so that it no longer turns on a list of qualifying branches, which the circular's own subject matter shows.
The circular does not touch the other conditions of the section, such as the loan and the repayment.

Where you meet it

A disallowance of a section 80E deduction on the ground that architecture is not engineering.

On the same provision

Other instruments in this library that name the same provision of the 1961 Act. They are not necessarily still operative, and a later one may have replaced an earlier one without saying so.

Circular No. 3/2006 — Explanatory Notes on the Provisions of the Finance Act, 2005 27 February 2006
Notification: 157 Date of Issue : 21/6/2002 — Housing Development Financial Corporation Ltd specified under section 80E 21 June 2002

← Circular No. 689 · Circular No. 687 →

A circular binds the department, not you and not a court. The Board issues a circular to its own officers. An assessee may hold the department to a circular that helps him; the department cannot hold an assessee to one that hurts him, and the Tribunal and the courts decide the law for themselves.

Source: the Income Tax Department’s own published text — its page for this instrument.