Skip to main content

Tax Saving with of Mutual Funds

Best SIP Funds Online 


About a month ago, in a sister publication of this newspaper, I wrote a column explaining the exact nature of the tax advantage that mutual fund investments offered over bank fixed deposits. The case I discussed was one where the goal was to earn a monthly income. It turns out that in an example investment where the annual income received was Rs 80,000, the tax outgo for bank deposits was Rs 24,720 while for mutual funds was Rs 1,831.

A lot of people who never invest in mutual funds don't really understand taxation on investments and were shocked at this. Even those who understand tax laws have not thought through the implications for specific types of investments. The reason for mutual funds being so much more tax efficient is the fact that the returns are delivered to the investor's books as capital gains whereas in bank deposits, they are delivered as interest income.

Some advantages of investing in mutual funds come from these kind of transformations. There are three ways that an investment can deliver gains: interest income, capital gains and dividends. Mutual funds, like stocks, can deliver gains as either capital gains or dividends. However, there is an important difference.

When you invest in stocks, capital gains are generated in the stock markets, and depend on stocks price movements and your acumen in buying and selling them. Dividends on the other hand, are decided by the company's management, and most of the time, have only a small and transient effect on stock price. Both depend on the company's profitability but the mechanisms are different.


In mutual funds, things are different. Mutual Funds invest in stocks or bonds out of the pooled money that investors give them. They earn capital gains, dividends and interest income. They are free to distribute the gains as capital gains or dividends, as they wish. Practically all mutual funds have growth (capital gains) plans and dividend plans. The same underlying gains, are distributed as either, and investors can choose whichever they want This has some good outcome and bad.  

The good part is that knowledgeable investors can fine-tune tax strategies as per their needs. The above example is based on such a transformation. The bad part is that investors who do not have a complete understanding of what is going on get misled by the word 'dividend'.


Mutual fund dividends are not dividends like corporate dividends. They are just your own money returned to you under the 'dividend' label. If you had chosen a growth option in the same fund, then the very same amount would have been available as capital gains. Many investors feel that a dividend is something extra and believe that a fund that pays more dividend is a better one.

This is not true. A mutual fund dividend is a pay-out from your own money. The facility of transforming one kind of gain into another is a great option that mutual funds have. In debt funds, they enable huge tax efficiency.


Debt funds generate part of their gains from interest income. Through an MF, these can be transformed into capital gains or dividend income. The convenience and savings can be considerable.


 




SIPs are when Stock Market is high volatile. Invest in Best Mutual Fund SIPs and get good returns over a period of time. Know Top SIP Funds to Invest Save Tax Get Rich

For further information on Top SIP Mutual Funds contact Save Tax Get Rich on 94 8300 8300

OR

You can write to us at

Invest [at] SaveTaxGetRich [dot] Com 

Popular posts from this blog

Mutual Fund Review: Religare Tax Plan

Tax Plan is one of the better performing schemes from Religare Asset Management. Existing investors can redeem their investment after three years. But given the scheme's performance, they can continue to stay invested   Given the mandated lock-in period of three years, tax saving schemes give the fund manager the leeway to invest in ideas that may take time to nurture. Religare Tax Plan's investment ideas revolve around 'High Growth', which the fund manager has aimed to achieve by digging out promising stories/businesses in the mid-cap segment. Within the space, consumer staples has been the centre of attention for the last couple of years and can be seen as one of the key reasons for the scheme's outperformance as compared to the broader market. It has, however, tweaked its focus and reduced exposure in midcaps as they were commanding a high premium. The strategy seems to have worked as it returned a 22% gain last year. Religare Tax Plan has outperformed BSE 100...

Good time to invest in Infrastructure Funds

Download Tax Saving Mutual Fund Application Forms Invest In Tax Saving Mutual Funds Online Buy Gold Mutual Funds Leave a missed Call on 94 8300 8300   Good time to invest in infrastructure The Sensex has gained almost 10 per cent from May 15 till date, while the CNX Infrastructure Index has gained almost 17 per cent in the period. The price to earnings ( P/ E) ratio of the BSE Sensex is 18.96; for the CNX Infrastructure Index, it is 24.57. The estimated P/ E for next year is 14.04 for the Sensex. Of the 24 companies that make up the CNX Infrastructure Index, six have a P/ E higher than 20. Does this mean infrastructure is fairly valued? Or, has it run up quite a bit? According to experts, barring stray companies, the infra sector is fairly valued and it is a good time to invest. Even if some companies are facing debt restructuring problems, once interest rates come down and regulatory norms become flexible, they will start giving good re...

TDS Rate and Personal Account Number(PAN)

    The TDS rate doubles to 20% from 10% if you fail to mention your Personal Account Number   IF you run a glance through your pay slip, you will come across something called TDS, which is tax deduction at source. In most cases, the employer deducts this amount at the time of payment of salary itself and pays the total tax amount to the government on behalf of all the employees. If you are a self- employed or practicing professional s, you have to pay this amount yourself.    Tax deducted at source is one of the modes of income tax collection by the government. Under the income-tax laws, income tax at specified rates is required to be deducted while making certain payments.    The rate of deduction of tax at source on interest and rent payment is 10%. For salary payments, the employers deduct income tax at source on a monthly basis after computing income tax liability on estimated annual taxable income of the employee. Tax benefits on housing loan, investments, etc are consid...

Tax Planning: Income tax and Section 80C

In order to encourage savings, the government gives tax breaks on certain financial products under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act. Investments made under such schemes are referred to as 80C investments. Under this section, you can invest a maximum of Rs l lakh and if you are in the highest tax bracket of 30%, you save a tax of Rs 30,000. The various investment options under this section include:   Provident Fund (PF) & Voluntary Provident Fund (VPF) Provident Fund is deducted directly from your salary by your employer. The deducted amount goes into a retirement account along with your employer's contribution. While employer's contribution is exempt from tax, your contribution (i.e., employee's contribution) is counted towards section 80C investments. You can also contribute additional amount through voluntary contributions (VPF). The current rate of interest is 8.5% per annum and interest earned is tax-free. Public Provident Fund (PPF) An account can be opened wi...

Fortis Mutual Fund

Fortis Mutual Fund, a relatively new player, it is still to prove its case and define its position in the industry. In September 2004, it came onto the scene with a bang - three debt schemes, one MIP and one diversified equity scheme. And investors flocked to it. Going by the standards at that time, it had a great start in terms of garnering money. Mopping up over Rs 2,000 crore in five schemes was not bad at all. The fund house has not been too successful in the equity arena, in terms of assets. Though it has seven equity schemes, it is debt and cash funds that corner the major portion of the assets. Most of the schemes are pretty new, and the two that have been around for a while have a 3-star rating each. The last two were Fortis Sustainable Development (April 2007), which received a rather poor response, and Fortis China India (October 2007). Fortis Flexi Debt has been one of the better performing funds, after a dismal performance in 2005. It currently has a 5-star rating. None ...
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Invest in Tax Saving Mutual Funds Download Any Applications
Transact Mutual Funds Online Invest Online
Buy Gold Mutual Funds Invest Now