Tax Planning

Have you ever wondered...

...if you can pay your income tax through your debit card or netbanking?

Now if your only income is salary, you probably don't need to worry about it. Your company will deduct and deposit TDS automatically on your behalf.

But, if you are a freelancer or otherwise have a substantive income from sources other than your salary, you may have additional tax liabilities. In fact, you may be liable to pay advance taxes even before the year ends.

There are a ton of questions on this subject and in this guide, I will try and cover all of those in detail....

Filing income tax returns is an annual chore...

But, fortunately, it gets easier each year.

Unlike years past, where filing through your CA was probably the easiest option, you can now go to the tax department's website or a tax aggregator and complete your filing without stepping out of your home.

If you are submitting your returns yourself, nothing beats the convenience of being able to efile through your net banking account.

Yes, your netbanking account can be used to efile your taxes. And the whole process takes less than a few minutes.​

In this post, I will do a quick walkthrough of this process...​

Money loses its value over time because of inflation...

...And when it comes to sales of your long term capital gains, your real profit may actually be much lower because of the rise in prices over time.

The Income Tax department recognizes this and issues an annual Cost Inflation Index (CII) that allows you to index your cost of acquisition to take inflation into account.

This indexed cost is then used to calculate your long term capital gains and the resultant tax on same.

In this post, I will share the complete cost inflation index chart that's updated till AY 2018-19 plus a Capital Gains Tax calculator for you to easily compute your tax liabilities...

Fixed deposits are inherently tax inefficient...

Any interest on them is 100% taxable. And to add to that this interest is also subject to TDS in case it's more than 10k INR/year.

Now, even if you are otherwise under the overall exemption limit, by default, TDS will still get deducted from your account.

And once its deducted, it becomes a game of waiting. You first wait to file your returns and then you wait for the tax refund to actually happen.

Won't it be simple if you could avoid this TDS altogether? But can you even do that?

Well, yes, you can...

And in this post I will cover 5 ways to minimize your TDS...

You got married recently and now you want to change your last name on your PAN card?

Or maybe you just shifted to a new home and want to modify your address? Or possibly you want to change your signatures or your father's name or your photograph or your date of birth or some other such information.

Whatever it is, you are doing absolutely the right thing by keeping your pan account up to date.

But, how to go about it? And how much effort will it take? Quick answer to these questions is that the process to update your pan details is well defined and can be completed online. In most cases, you won't have to visit IT office at all.

In this post, I will cover this entire process in detail...

A Fixed Deposit allows you to invest your money for a pre-determined period in return for a guaranteed interest rate on it.

Tax Saving FDs (also known as Tax Saver FDs) are no different but additionally they also allow you to save some taxes.

In this guide, I will cover all the key features and the most common questions about this popular investment option. I will also list the banks offering the best interest rates on these FDs.

So, let's get started...

Are you a salaried person?

Have you ever looked at your salary slip and wondered about the exact purpose of house rent allowance (HRA)? Do you know that HRA can help reduce your taxes if you stay in a rented accomodation?

Or may be you have some questions on your exemption limits or exact taxation rules that govern the HRA calculations.

Let’s see if I can help you with this…