Article 21 of the Notice (Guo Fa [2018] No.41) stipulates: "Taxpayers should keep relevant information such as house lease contracts and agreements for future reference."

Therefore, legally speaking, taxpayers should have housing lease contracts and agreements when deducting housing rent from personal income tax.

However, the tax authorities will not check them one by one during the actual deduction. As long as the deduction is within the statutory scope, taxpayers basically have housing lease contracts and agreements. Of course, if the tax authorities conduct spot checks, taxpayers need to produce relevant information. Pre-tax deduction data shall be kept for 5 years in accordance with regulations.

According to your situation, you can also sign a rental contract with your relatives. The rental contract is not necessarily signed with the landlord, and the housing contract signed with the "second landlord" can also be deducted before tax.

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