Hello friends! Welcome to another educational article in which I will tell you about personal finance. In today's article, I will tell you how you can save your income tax. Or can I say how to save tax? If you are a salaried employee and you pay income tax, then I will tell you how you can pay less tax. If you are an employee, it is possible that you are already aware of these methods. But if you do not know, then it is very important to know what you need to save tax. And if you are planning to work in the future, then you should also definitely know about tax savings. Let's start!
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Friends, if you are an employee or are planning to become an employee in the future, you can save on income tax by investing in the right places. Section 80C of our Income Tax Act informs us about the places where you can invest to pay less tax. This is known as 'deduction'.
If you invest in these special places, you will get a cut from your income. So that you do not have to pay tax on that amount. So basically you can save on your income tax. Section 80c states that if you invest a total of ₹ 1.5 lakh in certain things, you will not have to pay tax on that amount. So I am going to tell you about those specific things. And I will also tell you about the most popular and safest of these options.
Get income tax exemption by investing in EPF
EPF means Employees Provident Fund. It is one of the old and popular schemes launched by the government. You can apply for an EPF. If you get a salary, whether you are employed or self-employed. According to the scheme, 12% of the salary you receive is invested in EPF, while your employer invests an additional 12% on your behalf.
So a total of 24% of your salary goes to EPF. Out of the 12% you pay, you will not have to pay tax on ₹ 1.5 lakh per year. And the amount that the employer pays on your behalf, you will not have to pay tax on any of it. If you invest your salary in EPF, you can save a lot on your income tax.
Once you invest in EPF, you also earn an interest of around 8.5% on your savings. The right rate of interest is fixed by the government every year and there can be slight fluctuations in it. It was 8.5% in FY 2019-20.
When can I withdraw money from EPF?
There is usually a lock-in period of 5 years. Which means that you cannot withdraw money before 5 years. According to the reasons for withdrawal, even after 5 years, there are certain conditions that you can withdraw money by fulfilling.
For example, if you need money for your child's education or marriage, you can withdraw money from your EPF account. But generally this policy was made by the government to provide for you after your retirement.
When you stop working, you can withdraw your money from EPF. This was the purpose for which the EPF was created and the name given to it. When you are an employee, you can invest in the Employee Provident Plan, and when you retire and withhold drawing salary, you can use this fund.
Investing in EPF is very simple. Just go to your employer and ask them to register for EPF if they have not already done so. Once the registration is done, you have to ask for the UAN number.
After which, you download the Umang app. This app was introduced by the government. It shows the monthly balance and accrued interest of your EPF account. You can go to the app. This app was created by the government rather than a private company. You can see all the details here.
If you want to know more about EPF, I suggest that you check the FAQ section of the government website. https://www.epfindia.gov.in/site_en/FAQ.php
You can research any question you have. Generally I would like to say, if you are a salaried person, and you can save 24% of your salary, then it is a good option for saving and you should definitely go for it.
How to save income tax with PPF
Similar to EPF, another surprising scheme by the government is PPF for tax saving. The full name of PPF is General Provident Fund. It is applicable to everyone and it is very simple. Basically you can invest ₹ 1.5 lakh in a year per person. And you can get returns at 7.6% interest rate. Like the EPF, the government decides its correct return rate every year. But it is around 7.6%. You can start a PPF account for every family, even if you are under 18 years of age, and invest 1.5 lakh per year in a PPF account.
For example, if you invest 1.5 lakhs every year for 10 years, and the interest rate is 7.6%, then after 10 years the amount of your investment becomes 15 lakhs. While you get ₹ 23 lakhs. So you can see the huge difference between 15 lakhs and 23 lakhs.
So I would suggest that you should definitely go for PPF. And the best part is that you will not have to pay any tax on the 23 lakhs withdrawn from you. But if you have invested the same amount elsewhere, such as in a fixed deposit or stock market, then you will have to pay tax on the return. This is the difference. So now you must be thinking that
How can you register for PPF?
It is very easy, you can go to any post office or designated bank for registration in PPF. There are no set rules as to how you should invest in PPF. You can deposit a fixed amount monthly or annually. The lock-in period for PPF is 15 years. It is a long term investment.
If you want to withdraw the entire amount from PPF account, then you can do this only after 15 years. You can make partial withdrawals before 15 years but only after the maturity period. If you want to know more about this maturity period or PPF, then you read State Bank of India website, they have explained PPF very well. https://www.sbi.co.in/hi/web/personal-banking/investments-deposits/govt-schemes/ppf
Another major advantage of EPF and PPF is that they are government schemes. And there are the safest options to invest due to zero risk. There may be ups and downs in the market, but your money will be safe. Returns on the stock market or any other place are erratic. But here the returns are fixed and the risk is zero.
How to save tax by investing in ELSS
ELSS is showing the third way of investing in tax saving scheme. Its full form is Equity Linked Saving Schemes. ELSS is a type of mutual fund and comes under section 80c. If you invest money in it, then an investment of ₹ 1.5 lakh per year will be exempt from tax.
But it is associated with the market, so returns will fluctuate with the market. Potentially, it can give much higher or lower returns than EPF or PPF, as it depends on the market.
How can you invest in ELSS?
I have told you in the article about mutual funds. You can go through an asset management company, or use an app like GROW.
The GROW app is for mutual funds where you can find and filter many mutual funds. It also has ratings of various mutual funds including ELSS. So you can look into various types of ELSS funds and see their reviews.
The GROWW app shows you the historical performance of all mutual funds. These are the return rates of mutual funds over the years. You can see this for every mutual fund. If you invest in ELSS, you must check its historical performance.
Although, you cannot predict the future of the market based on historical performance, but you can predict what kind of returns are expected.
For example, suppose you invest ₹ 2 lakh in ELSS which increases to 2.5 lakh after 3 years. You will not have to pay a tax of ₹ 1.5 lakh for this, nor on the interest that you earn in 3 years.
However, there is a new tax of 10% introduced in 2018, Long Term Capital Gains Tax. This will apply to the amount you withdraw. This is applicable in case of more than 1 lakh. Apart from this, no tax will be levied. The lock-in period for ELSS is 3 years.
How to save income tax using life insurance
The fourth option of tax saving is life insurance. But life insurance is not considered an investment, because you do not invest in life insurance for returns. You invest in life insurance for protection. If you invest in life insurance, it is also covered under section 80c.
You will not have to pay a tax of ₹ 1.5 lakh on your investment. When taking life insurance I suggest that you should take pure insurance, which is known as "term insurance".
Nowadays, there are many life insurance companies that collaborate with banks, and try to sell schemes where they show high returns of investment for you. However, stay away from these things as they carry high risk and hidden charges.
Unfortunately, the limit of 1.5 lakh that I am talking about in this article is for the total investment. Which means that, for example, if you have invested 10 lakhs in EPF, PPF, Life Insurance and ELSS, out of ₹ 10 lakh as per Section 80K, only ₹ 1.5 lakh per year will be exempt from tax.
Similarly, there is a section 80 d for health insurance, with a maximum limit of ₹ 50,000. If you invest up to ₹ 50,000 in health insurance then it will be tax free.
If you put your money in a normal savings bank account, and you get an interest of around 3-4% on it, then the interest you get is exempt from tax of up to Rs 10,000.
It is defined in Section 80TTA. This is a new section in the Income Tax Act. It states that the interest received from savings account will be exempt from tax of up to 10,000.
These were the most popular ways of saving taxes, which have been brought by the government itself.
If you want to know more about these methods and the benefits applicable to a salaried person, then visit this link. This is a link to a government website. incometaxindia.gov.in
Here, more information about the benefits to a salaried person will be found here.
As a summary of Tax On Interest,
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