When you sell an asset like a stock or mutual fund after a year – in some cases, like Gold, three years – you need to pay long term capital gains tax. Equity mutual funds where more than 65% of the holding is equity don’t have long term cap gains tax c…

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The Government introduced the Direct Tax Code Bill today. After some serious amount of searching, I found the bill online, after struggling with pages timing out, debugging communication messages and guessing IP addresses. (Read: It was darn easy in th…

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The Union Cabinet has cleared the Direct Tax Code bill, which means nothing other than it will actually be cleared by December if it’s tabled on Monday, and that means sometime in the next decade it might actually happen. The DTC simplifies tax sla…

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When filling income tax forms, there’s an entry for the Designation of the Assessing Officer and Ward/Circle. This might be irrelevant for you, but if you do need to fill it up here’s how you can get the information. Go to https://incometaxindiaef…

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My latest column at Yahoo is about how taxes muddle our investment decisions: Nothing is certain but death and taxes, an old saying goes. The man who said those words went on to die, and no longer needs to worry about taxes. But you and I do — and…

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With the Budget revealing that the Direct Tax Code will be implemented from April 2011, a few choices have to be made now. The DTC brings in capital gains tax back again – even long term capital gains, which don’t get “preferential” treatment a…

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If you buy a tax saving mutual fund – an ELSS scheme or something with “taxsaver” in it – you expect a tax deduction. But does it always apply for you? ELSS mutual funds are specially deductible under Section 80C, which applies to everybody. I…

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Good news for parents of toddlers: The Latest Income Tax Circular, clarifies that Playschool fees qualify for tax deduction under section 80C, under the “full-time” education clause: Full-time education includes any educational course offered …

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The Income Tax Department has warned that any mails requesting credit card details are fraudulent. Information has been received from several quarters that people are receiving electronic mails informing them of their income-tax refunds and seeking…

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Indian Tax Revenues, as I’ve said earlier (Where are the taxes?), are not quite reflective of the buoyant mode of the market.

October 2009 data is now out, and total tax revenues are about 9% below last year to date numbers, at Rs. 2.14 trillion (lakh…

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