Tax exemption options based on lifestyle needs:

Investment Related

1. Benefit for your retirement I: We earn today not just for today, but also to support ourselves once we retire. Section 80C allows you to save ₹1,50,000 every year for your retirement in pension funds, provident funds, long term life insurance policies, ELSS, retirement funds, etc. While not all options are long term, we encourage investors to invest this chunk with a retirement kitty mindset. We can dig into the details of these options, but for now it’s important to understand this option exists. Using this option to the maximum leads to an annual tax saving of about ₹45,000.

2. Benefit for your retirement II: Beyond the ₹1,50,000 under section 80C, you are now also allowed an additional ₹50,000 investment in NPS under Section80CCD which will be tax deductible. However, one must understand that while you save on taxes today, almost 60% of your withdrawal after retirement becomes taxable. Thereby making this an instrument of only deferring taxes rather than saving taxes. This point may make a strong case for not using this option.

Beyond 80C

3. Relief for your health cover: Everyone needs some monetary relief when it comes to health and illness. The government provides this relief by giving you tax rebates for the premium you pay for your family’s and your parents’ health cover. Under Section 80D, you are eligible for a rebate of ₹25,000 towards health insurance for your family and another ₹25,000 towards that of your parents (₹30,000 if they are senior citizens). Thus you get a rebate of a total of ₹50,000-₹55,000.

4. Exemption for your education finance costs: In today’s ever-changing and competitive world education is of prime importance – for yourself as well as your children. The government allows you to take a tax rebate on the financing cost (interest) of an education loan. Section 80E puts no upper limit on this exemption. Interest on the loan taken for the higher education of self, spouse or child is exempt under this section. The loan can be taken from any bank, financial institution or charitable trust, but not from friends and family. The loan need not be an ‘education loan’ per say. Any loan (personal loan, loan against property) where the end use of funds is for higher education can be used for tax exemption.

5. Exemption for your home finance costs: Buying one’s own home is perhaps one of the most important goals in many Indian’s lives. The government provides tax benefits of up to ₹2,00,000 every year on the interest you pay on a home loan. Further, one must understand that tax benefits on a joint home loan are available to all the joint holders. It is important to note that ownership in the property is required to avail this tax benefit. If a loan is taken jointly, but the borrower is not an owner in the property, then you may not be able to claim tax exemptions. Likewise, owners who are not borrowers and do not contribute to the EMI will not be able to claim tax exemptions on the loan.

6. Relief for charitable work: Bas human beings, we are here to help one another. Contributions made to certain relief funds and charitable institutions can be claimed as a deduction under Section 80G. One must keep in mind that not all donations are covered for deduction under section 80G – only donations made to prescribed funds qualify as a deduction. Interestingly, this deduction is allowed to all types of tax payers – individuals, company, firm or any other person.

7. Exemption for your basic money needs: In our opinion, keeping money secure is the most basic need when it comes to money. For this, we keep money in a bank and earn savings interest on the sum. ₹10,000 of interest income from your savings bank account is exempt from being taxed.

Salary Structure Related

8. Relief for your house rent: For non-home owners, house rent can be quite a daunting expense to your finances. The government provides relief through tax exemptions on full or partial house rent paid. There is no absolute limit to this exemption. However the exemption amount will be the lower of actual House Rent Allowance as per of salary structure, 50% of basic salary (including DA) for metros (40% for non-metros) and the actual rent paid less 10% of basic salary.

9. Help for your medical expenses: In spite of the medical cover that one may have, you are bound to have some other miscellaneous medical expenses in the family. Up to ₹15,000 worth of these expenses annually, if reimbursed by your employer are tax-free in your hands. Considering that this is a reimbursement, one must remember that exemption is allowed up to the actual amount spent.

10. Happiness for your holidays: A holiday or a break is as important in your life as many other things. The government surprisingly comes to the rescue here as well! If Leave Travel Allowance forms a part of your salary structure, then this allowance can be used for tax exemptions for travel expenses on a trip within India. This allowance in only valid for immediate family and other dependent family members. The allowance allows economic air fare, first class AC train travel or other means of public transport.

11. Exemption for regular commute: Travelling to work is another basic necessity for performing your duties. Commuting expenses of up to ₹19,200 every year are exempt from taxes and can be claimed without producing proof or receipts.

This is not an exhaustive list but has all the major exemptions. There are many other exemptions that are eligible in various different special situations.

As you can see, a lot these exemptions have limits to cover only your basic needs and expenses. Knowing and understanding these allowances and exemptions is the first step in tax optimizing your finances.

Hope this helps!

– –

Anirudh Sheth, CFA

(P.S. I am an ex-London based investment banker. I am a strong believer of mutual funds and have most of my own wealth parked in mutual funds. Currently, I advise clients on managing their personal finance in Mumbai. I am also a CFA charterholder.)

I am assuming that the SIPs you are talking about are Equity SIPs. These prove to be better than most options retail investors have due the following two reasons: A, it is an equity investment. B, it is a systematic investment. I will elaborate on both of these.

A. Equity Investment

• Risk over time: If you google a bit, you will find tonnes of charts that will show you how over a longer period equity investments tend to outperform most other types of investments. The key here is “over a longer period”. Equity investments are not fixed return investments. Over a shorter period they can give you losses as well – but to you need to give your market investments time to recover should this happen. Ideally, equity mutual funds are a great place to grow your wealth. And growing wealth takes time, it doesn’t happen overnight. [We are not talking about gambling or being on a magician’s stage here ]. So, if you have a short term horizon, ideally don’t consider investing in equity SIPs.
• Equity and business: You must understand that investing in equities effectively means taking an ownership in a company. Now if you were to invest in your own business idea, would you put your money in it if it were to give you the same 7–8% return as FDs? You would look at at least a 12% return (most likely 15%) for the risk you are taking, isn’t it? So theoretically, businesses should pay you more than FDs. However, a lot of businesses do go bad. So practically, this can only be achieved if you are constantly identifying and selling off bad businesses to buy other better businesses. And this is where a mutual fund comes in – the fund manager does the work of constantly improving the quality of businesses in your portfolio.
• Equity and economy: If you you invest in an SIP portfolio of 2–3 funds, you most likely will own businesses (good ones) from across different sectors of the economy. Now theoretically, the only scenario that such a portfolio will not give you decent money over a 10 year period is if India doesn’t grow as an economy in this period. (If India doesn’t grow, the businesses don’t grow. If businesses don’t go, the value of your ownership doesn’t grow).

B. Systematic Investment

• Value of a “System” in investing: If you google a bit, you will find tonnes of research that has shown time and again that the best way to make money and mitigate risks in investments, is to develop a system and follow it no matter what. An SIP is one of the easiest such system available to retail investors.
• Averaging: When you invest a fixed amount periodically in a volatile avenue like equities, it helps you average out your investment price over time. You end up buying more units for the same money when markets are low and less units for the same money when the markets are high. This fine tunes the average cost at which you have been purchasing units.

Having said this, equity markets have given about a 15% return in the past – and funds a little more than that. Just because they gave that in the past doesn’t mean that you will get the same in the future. If I were you, I would make my financial plan based on a more conservative 12–14% expectation. (This is still better than most other options available!)

The below table shows you how much money you would end up with at different levels. If things go good and India grows well you may land up in the bottom few rows. If I were you I wouldn’t plan an equity SIP for the first two columns.

You must remember that there is no guarantee that the returns will fall in this range. Theoretically, you can also get negative returns.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Anirudh Sheth, CFA

(P.S. I am an ex-London based investment banker. I am a strong believer of mutual funds and have most of my own wealth parked in mutual funds. Currently, I advise clients on managing their mutual funds investments & personal finance in Mumbai. I am also a CFA charterholder.)

This is high return, but very high effort. Your 1,000 can be deployed and returned as 2,000–3,000 within a day at most of the daily wage, cash based businesses.

This is a super short film which explains the concept.

Here are a series on scroll.in with examples that will show how attractive the opportunity of daily economics is. This could be extended to selling veggies, flowers etc.

I have a theory why stocks, mutual funds etc, might not be an attractive option in your case. It’s called the paradox of value. I am making some assumptions to advise this answer.

1. Rs. 1,000 to 10,000 is not going to make a life of death situation difference for you
2. You can afford to take a risk of 10–20% in order of make a return >25%
3. You need a quick fix, rather then wait 10 years, because even at 30% IRR over 10 years, you’ll only end up getting 13,786/-. Add inflation 10 years and it’ll not even be able to buy you then what it can buy you today.

All in all these are some of options I’d recommend:

1. If you have the skills and knowledge, trade stocks and hope to make profit with each trade, because the margin for error is very very low. Note: Don’t rely on tips.
2. If you don’t have the skills, but willing to roll-up your sleeves – there are some business options that you can look at
3. If you don’t have the skills and looking at this as more of a passive investment, then these are your options:
   1. Invest in bluechip stocks and try not to see it’s value everyday. Review once or twice a years. Expense ratio will be high if this is the only investment you make. Expect to make 15–20% per annum over a 5–7 years period. Reinvest the dividend that you’ll receive.
   2. Invest in a mutual fund and expect to make a similar return with no upfront cost. Your returns will be next of expenses by fund houses and/or advisors.
   3. Give an unsecured personal loan to someone and charge an interest. The credit default risk is yours.
   4. Walk in to a jewellery store next door, buy physical assets such as a silver coin or buy gold coins online (PayTm offers them)
   5. If you need more help with the a,b,c,d ping your the advisor next door.