Aug 11 2014 : The Times of India (Ahmedabad)
Best ways to cut tax under Sec 80C
Sanket Dhanorkar
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Deduction under Sec 80C has increased. Instead of random investments, use the additional limit to fill gaps in your financial plan
Imagine you have won a gift voucher worth `50,000 at the local hypermarket.When you go to the store, there is a vastarray of items you can purchase with it.
Salespersons try to draw your attention to their counters, pitching their merchandise aggressively. Will you buy whatever new gizmo they are trying to sell? Or will you utilise the money to purchase something you actually need for the household? The additional `50,000 deduction given to taxpayers under Section 80C in this year's budget is also like a gift voucher from the government. Instead of investing at random, a taxpayer should assess his needs and invest to fill the gaps in his financial planning. Do you need to invest more?
Before you start planning your investments, find out if you actually need to invest more.
Section 80C is an overcrowded deduction, which includes more than a dozen instruments. Besides, it has the principal repayment of home loans and tuition fees of up to two children. Many taxpayers may find that their Section 80C investments already exceed the enhanced deduction of `1.5 lakh.
In the lower income segments, taxpayers may not need to save too much. Note that the basic exemption limit has also been raised by `50,000 to `2.5 lakh for ordinary citizens and to `3 lakh for senior citizens. So, if a person has a taxable income of `3.5 lakh, he needs to invest only `1 lakh to reduce his tax liability to zero. Even otherwise, a person earning less than `4 lakh a year might find it difficult to invest an additional `50,000 under Section 80C just to save tax. Unfortunately, many people are either not aware of their actual tax liability or are fooled into investing more.
For many home loan customers, the loan repayment alone can take care of the investments under Section 80C. Pune-based IT professional Vilas Pacharne (see picture) will reap three benefits from the budget proposals, but won't have to invest even a rupee more to avail of them. He gains from the increase in the basic exemption, the raising of the Section 80C limit and the increase in the home loan deduction under Section 24(b) to `2 lakh.
Though he does not contribute a very large amount to his EPF and PPF, his home loan repayment adds up to around `92,000 a year.
“My Section 80C investments are already more than `1.5 lakh and the home loan interest is close to `2 lakh,“ he says.
On the other hand, there are taxpayers with higher incomes who may want to invest more to save tax. Salaried employees who contribute to the Provident Fund often find they have to invest very little under Section 80C. Delhi-based finance professional Puneet Narang (see picture) contributes nearly `92,000 to his Provident Fund. “I have never had to do any tax planning because my PF and an insurance policy take care of it,“ he says. But now that the limit has been enhanced by `50,000, Narang is contemplating investing in ELSS funds to gain the equity exposure that's missing in his portfolio. “If you do not have any equity exposure, an ELSS fund can be the first step towards this asset class,“ says Nisreen Mamaji, founder of Moneyworks Financial Advisors.
Choose instruments carefully
The enhanced deduction limit is certainly an opportunity for taxpayers to reduce their tax liability, but how much you benefit from it will depend on how you deploy the money. “Insurance companies and agents will now become more aggressive and push bundled products under the pretext of helping you save tax,“ cautions Neeraj Chauhan, CEO of Delhi-based Financial Mall. For example, investment-linked insurance policies, also known as Ulips, neither offer you adequate cover nor give good returns.
Says Mamaji: “Buying a high-cost product with a long lock-in period many not be the best idea.“
The good part is that Section 80C offers enough choices to fulfill all your financial needs.
Is your insurance in place?
Before taxpayers like Narang allocate money to ELSS, they should assess their insurance needs.
Most experts say that adequate life insurance cover is the first step in a financial plan. A pure protection term plan can be useful here. It offers a large insurance cover at a low price. Narang is grossly underinsured and should buy a term plan of `1 crore for himself. That will cost him around `18,000 a year. The balance amount of the additional limit can be put in ELSS funds. If he needs more equity exposure, he can go for diversified equity funds instead of ELSS.
If you already have adequate life insurance, move to other tax-saving avenues. Do consider the tenure of the instrument you invest in. The lock-in ranges from three years for ELSS funds to 15 years for PPF. Choose a tenure that coincides with your financial goals. For long-term goals such as retirement, you may choose to invest in the 15-year PPF or the NPS. The Budget has also raised the ceiling for investments in the PPF to `1.5 lakh, which may entice some to invest more in this vehicle.
Saving for retirement Before
deciding to invest more in PPF, consider adding more to your EPF. The 12% of your basic salary that you contribute every month will help build your retirement kitty. You also have the option of contributing a higher amount through the VPF. Both the PPF and EPF enjoy exemptexempt-exempt tax status, which means the initial contribution, interest earned and the maturity proceeds are all tax-free. However, if you encash your EPF before five years, the interest component is added to your total income and taxed at the rate corresponding to your tax slab.
The 80C benefit you claimed in earlier years is also reversed. Pension plans offered by insurers are not an attractive option.
Harness the power of equities
Experts advise against depending purely on EPF and PPF for retirement needs. They are debtbased instruments and their returns will not be able to beat inflation. “People have been depending on PPF for too long,“ says Mamaji. “It is time investors realised that these are not sufficient for their retirement needs.“ If you wanto to build a decent corpus for retirement invest in equities. ELSS funds can be an investor's first step in the equity market. Says Hemant Rustagi, CEO, Wiseinvest Advisors: “Besides your compulsory savings towards PF and insurance, investors should make use of this enhanced limit to take exposure to a different asset class like equity.“
Ideally, you should start an SIP in an ELSS from the beginning of the financial year, spreading investments over 12 months. The best thing about ELSS funds is the flexibility they offer.
The minimum investment is very low at `500 and the investor can put in money on any trading day of the year. Unlike a Ulip or a pension plan, there is no compulsion to invest every year. Turn to page 15 to know more about the advantages of ELSS funds.
You can take equity exposure through other instruments, such as Ulips, unit-linked pension plans and the NPS, as well. However, the high charges of Ulips and pension plans make them poor choices. On the other hand, the NPS is a low-cost product that can be effectively used for retirement planning. You can decide the allocation to equity, corporate bonds and government securities, as per your risk profile.
Saving for short-term goals
Not all financial goals are 15-20 years away . For taxpayers who need the money sooner, NSCs and five-year tax-saving bank fixed deposits can be useful options. NSCs can be purchased from designated post office branches. The tax-saving FD is offered by most nationalised banks and the rate currently on offer is 9-9.5%. However, the interest earned through NSCs and tax-saving bank FDs is fully taxable as income at the applicable rate. So, for an individual in the highest 30% tax slab, the post-tax returns from a fiveyear NSC will be only 5.95%. This makes them tax-inefficient compared to the PPF and EPF.
Tax-saving options for senior citizens
Senior citizens looking to save tax should consider their cash flows carefully. Many, like Mumbai-based Shripad Narvekar (see picture) may not find it easy to spare for tax-saving investment. They should also steer clear of long-term invetsments. “It would not make sense for retirees to keep their money locked for long tenures,“ says Chauhan. The Senior Citizens' Savings Scheme is a perfect option. There is a fiveyear lock-in period but interest is paid out every quarter to generate an income stream for the individual. Though premature withdrawals from the scheme are allowed, there is a penalty if the amount is withdrawn before five years.
Salespersons try to draw your attention to their counters, pitching their merchandise aggressively. Will you buy whatever new gizmo they are trying to sell? Or will you utilise the money to purchase something you actually need for the household? The additional `50,000 deduction given to taxpayers under Section 80C in this year's budget is also like a gift voucher from the government. Instead of investing at random, a taxpayer should assess his needs and invest to fill the gaps in his financial planning. Do you need to invest more?
Before you start planning your investments, find out if you actually need to invest more.
Section 80C is an overcrowded deduction, which includes more than a dozen instruments. Besides, it has the principal repayment of home loans and tuition fees of up to two children. Many taxpayers may find that their Section 80C investments already exceed the enhanced deduction of `1.5 lakh.
In the lower income segments, taxpayers may not need to save too much. Note that the basic exemption limit has also been raised by `50,000 to `2.5 lakh for ordinary citizens and to `3 lakh for senior citizens. So, if a person has a taxable income of `3.5 lakh, he needs to invest only `1 lakh to reduce his tax liability to zero. Even otherwise, a person earning less than `4 lakh a year might find it difficult to invest an additional `50,000 under Section 80C just to save tax. Unfortunately, many people are either not aware of their actual tax liability or are fooled into investing more.
For many home loan customers, the loan repayment alone can take care of the investments under Section 80C. Pune-based IT professional Vilas Pacharne (see picture) will reap three benefits from the budget proposals, but won't have to invest even a rupee more to avail of them. He gains from the increase in the basic exemption, the raising of the Section 80C limit and the increase in the home loan deduction under Section 24(b) to `2 lakh.
Though he does not contribute a very large amount to his EPF and PPF, his home loan repayment adds up to around `92,000 a year.
“My Section 80C investments are already more than `1.5 lakh and the home loan interest is close to `2 lakh,“ he says.
On the other hand, there are taxpayers with higher incomes who may want to invest more to save tax. Salaried employees who contribute to the Provident Fund often find they have to invest very little under Section 80C. Delhi-based finance professional Puneet Narang (see picture) contributes nearly `92,000 to his Provident Fund. “I have never had to do any tax planning because my PF and an insurance policy take care of it,“ he says. But now that the limit has been enhanced by `50,000, Narang is contemplating investing in ELSS funds to gain the equity exposure that's missing in his portfolio. “If you do not have any equity exposure, an ELSS fund can be the first step towards this asset class,“ says Nisreen Mamaji, founder of Moneyworks Financial Advisors.
Choose instruments carefully
The enhanced deduction limit is certainly an opportunity for taxpayers to reduce their tax liability, but how much you benefit from it will depend on how you deploy the money. “Insurance companies and agents will now become more aggressive and push bundled products under the pretext of helping you save tax,“ cautions Neeraj Chauhan, CEO of Delhi-based Financial Mall. For example, investment-linked insurance policies, also known as Ulips, neither offer you adequate cover nor give good returns.
Says Mamaji: “Buying a high-cost product with a long lock-in period many not be the best idea.“
The good part is that Section 80C offers enough choices to fulfill all your financial needs.
Is your insurance in place?
Before taxpayers like Narang allocate money to ELSS, they should assess their insurance needs.
Most experts say that adequate life insurance cover is the first step in a financial plan. A pure protection term plan can be useful here. It offers a large insurance cover at a low price. Narang is grossly underinsured and should buy a term plan of `1 crore for himself. That will cost him around `18,000 a year. The balance amount of the additional limit can be put in ELSS funds. If he needs more equity exposure, he can go for diversified equity funds instead of ELSS.
If you already have adequate life insurance, move to other tax-saving avenues. Do consider the tenure of the instrument you invest in. The lock-in ranges from three years for ELSS funds to 15 years for PPF. Choose a tenure that coincides with your financial goals. For long-term goals such as retirement, you may choose to invest in the 15-year PPF or the NPS. The Budget has also raised the ceiling for investments in the PPF to `1.5 lakh, which may entice some to invest more in this vehicle.
Saving for retirement Before
deciding to invest more in PPF, consider adding more to your EPF. The 12% of your basic salary that you contribute every month will help build your retirement kitty. You also have the option of contributing a higher amount through the VPF. Both the PPF and EPF enjoy exemptexempt-exempt tax status, which means the initial contribution, interest earned and the maturity proceeds are all tax-free. However, if you encash your EPF before five years, the interest component is added to your total income and taxed at the rate corresponding to your tax slab.
The 80C benefit you claimed in earlier years is also reversed. Pension plans offered by insurers are not an attractive option.
Harness the power of equities
Experts advise against depending purely on EPF and PPF for retirement needs. They are debtbased instruments and their returns will not be able to beat inflation. “People have been depending on PPF for too long,“ says Mamaji. “It is time investors realised that these are not sufficient for their retirement needs.“ If you wanto to build a decent corpus for retirement invest in equities. ELSS funds can be an investor's first step in the equity market. Says Hemant Rustagi, CEO, Wiseinvest Advisors: “Besides your compulsory savings towards PF and insurance, investors should make use of this enhanced limit to take exposure to a different asset class like equity.“
Ideally, you should start an SIP in an ELSS from the beginning of the financial year, spreading investments over 12 months. The best thing about ELSS funds is the flexibility they offer.
The minimum investment is very low at `500 and the investor can put in money on any trading day of the year. Unlike a Ulip or a pension plan, there is no compulsion to invest every year. Turn to page 15 to know more about the advantages of ELSS funds.
You can take equity exposure through other instruments, such as Ulips, unit-linked pension plans and the NPS, as well. However, the high charges of Ulips and pension plans make them poor choices. On the other hand, the NPS is a low-cost product that can be effectively used for retirement planning. You can decide the allocation to equity, corporate bonds and government securities, as per your risk profile.
Saving for short-term goals
Not all financial goals are 15-20 years away . For taxpayers who need the money sooner, NSCs and five-year tax-saving bank fixed deposits can be useful options. NSCs can be purchased from designated post office branches. The tax-saving FD is offered by most nationalised banks and the rate currently on offer is 9-9.5%. However, the interest earned through NSCs and tax-saving bank FDs is fully taxable as income at the applicable rate. So, for an individual in the highest 30% tax slab, the post-tax returns from a fiveyear NSC will be only 5.95%. This makes them tax-inefficient compared to the PPF and EPF.
Tax-saving options for senior citizens
Senior citizens looking to save tax should consider their cash flows carefully. Many, like Mumbai-based Shripad Narvekar (see picture) may not find it easy to spare for tax-saving investment. They should also steer clear of long-term invetsments. “It would not make sense for retirees to keep their money locked for long tenures,“ says Chauhan. The Senior Citizens' Savings Scheme is a perfect option. There is a fiveyear lock-in period but interest is paid out every quarter to generate an income stream for the individual. Though premature withdrawals from the scheme are allowed, there is a penalty if the amount is withdrawn before five years.
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