Infrastructure Bonds - A sneak peek

The Budget for the fiscal 2010-11 introduced infrastructure bonds to facilitate financing of long gestation infrastructure projects. The government has notified an investment of up to Rs 20,000 in these bonds to be exempt from income tax over and above the Rs 1 lakh tax exemption under section 80C of the Income Tax Act.  This should result in an additional tax saving of Rs 2,000 to Rs 6,000, depending on the tax slab applicable...

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Buying ULIPS will Cost Less Now

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) has announced new set of guidelines for ULIPs. They will now cost lesser but have a longer lock-in period. IRDA, on Monday, said that insurers will now be allowed to charge up to 4% on annual premium paid on Ulips for the first five years, and thereafter charges will be reduced during the tenure of the policy. For plans of 15 years and above, the charges will be restricted at 2.25%...

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ICICI Prudential Pinnacle Guaranteed NAV- Review

Guaranteed return products are undoubtedly very popular among us Indians. We use at least one of these products, say, bank fixed deposits, NSC, KVP, PPF, REC Bonds, etc., to pick up a decent fixed return.  The latest offering is by ICICI Prudential which has introduced ICICI Pru Pinnacle, a guaranteed return unit-linked insurance plan (ULIP). But the question remains as whether this plan will succeed in attracting investors...

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MoneyControl.com in discussion with Subhash Lakhotia on Budget 2010

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Subhash Lakhotia, Tax Guru; Sanjay Sinha, CEO of L&T Mutual Fund and Kamesh Goyal, Country Head of Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance evaluate the Union Budget and its impact on your wallet. Below is the edited transcript of Subhash Lakhotia, Kamesh Goyal and Sanjay Sinha’s exclusive interview on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the video. Q: Upto Rs 50,000 seems to be the benefit—more so for people who are earning...

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Harsha Bhogle: The rise of cricket, the rise of India | Video on TED.com

This is a nice presentation by Harsha Bhogle relating Rise of Cricket (T20) and the rise of India. Enjoy: Harsha Bhogle: The rise of cricket, the rise of India | Video on TED.c...

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New Tax Slabs post Budget 2010

Budget 2010 has been out and there has been a change in the Income Tax Rates that one would pay in FY 2010-11. This post has a brief detail about the changes: Income Tax Slab  for Financial Year 2010-11 Assessment Year 2011-12 Tax Men  Women Senior  Citizen Rate (In Rupees) (In Rupees) (In Rupees) 0.00% Upto 1,60,000 Upto 1,90,000 Upto 2,40,000         10.00% 1,60,001 to 5,00,000 1,90,001 to 5,00,000 2,40,001 to...

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Section 80 C: A Tax Saving Tool (Part 1)

Section 80C is the refuge that all of us take to protect our hard earned money against the sword called TAXES. But it is important to know this section intoto to get the full benefits. Here is my humble attempt at this: Section 80C offers you a deduction of upto Rs 1 Lakh from the total income for a year. This money needs to be spent/invested on the instruments mentioned under this section. Here are some of the instruments that...

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Tax Rates for FY 2009-10

It's that time of the year once again. Everyone must be wondering what is their tax liability and be scampering to save money from being taxed. Let us start by knowing which tax bracket do we fall in for this year: Here is a pictorial presentation of the different tax brackets [courtesy: Outlook Money]: How to arrive at Taxable Income? Taxable Income = Income from (Salary + House Property + Capital Gains + Business/Profession + Other...

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Dividend Delusion

An article from Valueresearchonline.com today: One of the most persistent confusions that mutual fund investors have is with the concept of dividends. Many fund investors seem to think that a mutual fund dividend is some sort of a bonanza, an extra bit of money that comes their way because of something special the fund has done. This is not a fringe belief, yet it is so pervasive that giving out dividends has long been a standard method...

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Skepticism: A tool to investing prowess!

Investing, as they say, is not difficult, but requires a little bit of effort. Skepticism: By definition means, A doubting or questioning attitude or state of mind. If one maintains this doubting state of mind while making investment decisions as well, one can make some really calculated and good decisions. Here are a few examples that Dhirender Kumar of Valueresearchonline gives for this: let's say that a fund distributor wants you...

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Should you Invest Or Repay your Loans?

Found this article on Outlook Money (Dec 30, 2009 issue) and thought to share it on this platform. The traditional wisdom says that you probably shouldn’t be investing while in debt unless you can reasonably expect to outperform the interest rates that you’re paying. In other words, if you’re carrying a high-interest debt, you should focus on getting out of debt instead of building your portfolio. This sounds simpler than it is. What...

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Know your Credit Worthiness

You can now access your Credit Information Report (CIR) directly from CIBIL. As you may be aware, your CIBIL CIR is a factual record of your credit payment history compiled from information received from credit grantors. The purpose is to help credit grantors make informed lending decisions - quickly and objectively, and enable faster processing of your credit applications to help provide you speedier access to credit at better terms. You...

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Tips to tackle Inflation

Inflation as we have discussed, is bad. It affects your buying power as well as it hurts your investments. This is because, the interest on your investments is now worth less than what you were expected to get. The hardest hit are the retired people, who are risk averse and have most of their investments in fixed income instruments. Inflation adjusted rate: ((1+i)/(1+r))-1 x 100 Here, i is the interest rate and r is the inflation. Thus,...

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How does India calculate Inflation?

Continuing from the last post, I'll try to discuss how India calculates Inflation and how is that different from the rest of the world. But first let's discuss what is Wholesale Price Index (WPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI). Wholesale Price Index - WPI was first published in 1902, and was one of the more economic indicators available to policy makers until it was replaced by most developed countries with the Consumer Price Index in...

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The monster of Inflation

Inflation has been a big cause of concern world over in the recent past, especially in India. So, I thought to present a crash course on this topic today. My source is obviously the ever-expanding Internet. In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation...

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