A 6-Point Wishlist for Union Budget 2023

The Union Budget 2023 is round the corner. Are you ready with your wish list? What do you want from this budget? Lower taxes? Higher tax deductions? Additional tax exemptions? The Budget announcements may not meet all your demands/wishes since the Government must strike the right balance between populism, targeted incentives, and tax collections. Still,… Continue Reading

My Favourite Tax-Saving Investment

A quick disclaimer to begin. My favourite tax-saving investment does not have to be your favourite tax-saving investment and we can always agree to disagree. We discussed “Things to consider before investing in a tax-saving product” in an earlier post. The post is a good primer on how to think about your tax-saving choices. My… Continue Reading

Are You Planning to Make a Tax-Saving Investment?

The tax-saving season is round the corner. Are you still running around to finalize tax-saving investments? Well, there are so many ways to save tax. There is PPF, EPF, NPS, ELSS, LIC policies, ULIPs, 5-year FDs, life and health insurance plans, pension plans and many more. In this post, I do not intend to discuss… Continue Reading

Investing in Debt Funds vs. Prepaying a Loan

You just got your annual bonus. You want to decide between whether to use the bonus to prepay the home loan. Or put this money away in a bank fixed deposit or any other investment. The approach is simple. If the post-tax cost of your loan is HIGHER than the post-tax return from the supposed… Continue Reading

Budget 2020 Highlights

The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, presented the Union Budget 2020 in the parliament yesterday. In this post, let’s look at the highlights of the Budget proposal. We will look at the proposals from personal taxation perspective only. #1 Restructuring of Income Tax Slabs, Lowering of Personal Tax Rates and a Choice There is a major… Continue Reading

Changes to PPF Loan Rules

In an earlier post, we had discussed a quick and cheap way to get a loan, Loan against your PPF account. Even though the loan window is open for only a short period and the loan amount is not likely to be very big, a PPF loan is an option if you are looking for… Continue Reading