For our next couple, equality doesn’t come with having to contribute to the monthly budget. They know one another since being college-mates and after nearly 2 decades of being married, can both complete each other’s sentences as well as together enjoy the silences in between.
Rajesh Kodoth is Regional Business Head at Ola Cabs and Swetha Rajesh, manages their wonderful home, having decided to leave her career early to devote her time to family. Over the last few years, they had built an assorted but real estate heavy portfolio and decided that it was time to seek professional help to future-proof their investments.
On the trigger to seek professional advice, Rajesh says “While we have been investing it wasn’t necessarily based on what was required to cover long-term financial needs. Also, our asset allocation was not balanced. Finwise helped me create investment plans to maximise returns on the current investments and plan the future.
On being asked about Swetha’s involvement in their financial well-being journey, he had this to say “Swetha is an integral part of our expense planning and in the journey to financial well-being. Her involvement helps make right decisions, gives an alternate perspective and overall comfort of a partnership.”
Being involved in a financial well-being journey together does not necessarily require both the spouses to be equal contributors financially. What it does require is the mindset that the other person can bring something to the table, and from our experiences, we can surely tell you that in such cases, one plus one turns out to equal much more than two!
Finwise is a personal finance solutions firm that helps both NRI and resident individuals and families plan for their financial goals, follow their passions and achieve financial independence.
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Our third couple are equals in every sense. Amish & Trupti Jasapara are doctors and both are in corporate practice. Amish is Senior Consultant at Fortis Hospitals and Trupti is Senior Consultant at SR Mehta & Sir KP Cardiac Institute. And in their personal lives, both take turns – whether it is in managing the various expenses of their family or in funding for their goals of the future.
As Amish says, “As doctors who face the same challenges every day, there was no way we could have been anything but equals. Trupti has single-handedly managed the family and has taken decisions without hesitation, when I took a sabbatical to study in Germany. She is a prudent investor and her involvement has meant that we have not added unnecessarily to our lifestyle and have saved before we spent. We both ensure we are on the same page before we embark upon any new investment/expenditure.”
On being asked about when they discovered the need for professional advice, Trupti had this to say “As doctors, if there is one thing which is in short supply, it has got be time. Lack of proper knowledge of investments, some losses incurred and shortage of time directed us towards getting professional help for our investments. Finwise through their systematic analysis helped us understand that healthy financial goals are a reality.
Their being professionals themselves, they didn’t have to hesitate when it came to seeking professionals when planning for their future goals, including their retirement. Having done that, they are now able to spare valuable time on other aspects of their personal life – scaling further heights in their professional careers and enjoying the small pleasures in their present, without having to feel guilty about it.
Finwise is a personal finance solutions firm that helps both NRI and resident individuals and families plan for their financial goals, follow their passions and achieve financial independence.
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For advice, please reach us at getfinwise@finwise.in or +91 9870702277/9820818007.
While in many households, it is common to see that the responsibility of managing investments falls upon one, having a spouse who is also interested in the nuances of money need not be threatening at all to the person managing it. If anything, it helps by having a bouncing board, and allows you to get another perspective. A person who knows you and is equally responsible in the money management process helps ensure that individual biases if any get identified, since the risk-tolerances of both is not likely to be the same.
The couple we talk about today is one such. They are Pramod Marar & Suvena Bansal, both of whom work in the banking & financial services sector. Pramod is COO – Commercial Banking at HSBC India and Suvena is Head – Risk Policy at Aditya Birla Finance Limited.
Both Pramod & Suvena have been judicious about the need to put money away, and have been active savers and investors right from the beginning. So how did Pramod & Suvena decide that they needed help in reviewing their finances? In their words, “We felt the need to consult with professionals, when we reshuffled our real estate portfolio and realized we needed a better asset mix for our mid-term goals. Time was running out, there wasn’t enough time to plan, research and execute. We also needed someone whom we could trust and yet they weren’t too close, as financial matters can strain relationships.
On both being involved in the decision making on their family’s finances, they say, “Both of us from the beginning have had a say in all the investment decisions we have made. It has been a together thing always, we just don’t know to do it any other way.”
Their comfort with managing money together has helped Pramod & Suvena over the years jointly formulate a plan that will help them meet their financial goals for their family and achieve financial security. And being financially secure, is helping them focus more on the other things in life. In their words “Parents are getting older so we like to spend as much time as we can with them. Kids are in the teenage phase and require a new orientation, something we are working on. Work as new responsibilities so overall, a plate that is overflowing full.”
Finwise is a personal finance solutions firm that helps both NRI and resident individuals and families plan for their financial goals, follow their passions and achieve financial independence.
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For advice, please reach us at getfinwise@finwise.in or +91 9870702277/9820818007.
Last year, for International Women’s Day, we shared stories of some successful women, who over the last few years, started their journey with Finwise and took charge of their financial lives to make it more secure for themselves and their families.
This year, we share journeys of some such couples over the next few days, and hope they inspire you to take similar actions to free your and families’ financial futures.
Our first couple is Dr. Ashok Dabir & Dr. Neela Dabir. Ashok is a successful and leading oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Mumbai, and Neela is professor at TISS, and Dean of their Institute of Vocational Education.
On the role of Neela in the family’s financial journey, Ashok says, “We have always had a relationship of equals. I was one of the earliest people to recognise that I had married someone who was meticulous in her work and could envisage and implement things effortlessly. I am not very involved with the finances as I can see Neela has the passion and an eye for numbers, she enjoys doing a deep dive to understand the nuances of the products. That has been a huge blessing since it gives each of us the space to pursue what we enjoy, while having the peace of mind that the better half is doing a great job with things, we don’t particularly like doing.”
About getting on the path of financial well-being, he surmises, “We had been investing over the years. But it was with various people who were selling products to us. None of them tried to look at us holistically. While each of them was able to enumerate the benefits individually, we were looking for somebody to bring it all together and give us an unbiased view as our representative and not trying to sell us a product. Our association with Finwise started way back in 2015 in a small way, it has grown to encompass all our investments and we have a sounding board for our ideas as well as someone to disagree with us when it is called for.”
Their children are now grown up and building their own lives, and in this phase, always being financially prudent has helped Ashok & Neela fulfil their passions – they travel the world together regularly, visiting new places, every few months.
Finwise is a personal finance solutions firm that helps both NRI and resident individuals and families plan for their financial goals, follow their passions and achieve financial independence.
To receive our articles through email, pl subscribe here.
For advice, please reach us at getfinwise@finwise.in or +91 9870702277/9820818007.
Over the years, the significance of the Union Budget has come down and doesn’t have such an impact on our everyday lives, and hence doesn’t interest too many of us anymore. That said, there are still some, especially those in the finance businesses, for whom listening to the Budget is a yearly ritual.
Budget 2020 and its impact on your personal financial plan
But given the negative news as well as poor economy numbers over the last couple of quarters, we would dare say that the FY21 Budget presented last week had more than a usual number of people waiting for it. For most, last week would have been one of anticipation for Saturday to arrive and hope that the finance minister has something up her sleeve to magically move the economy into 4th gear, trigger consumption, improve rural incomes, increase investment, ease credit flows and banking woes and overall reverse the prevailing sentiment, while of course ensuring that the fiscal deficit doesn’t scarily worsen.
Many articles have already dissected the Budget presentation as well as the detailed document post that, so we will not attempt a repeat of that. But even for the most disinterested observers, the least they would have expected is how the budget will put more money into our pocket or at least ease our difficulties in dealing with taxes. So, we have looked at how this year’s budget has panned out for your personal finances and identified 6 changes which could affect you personally.
Changes in Income Tax structure
Who doesn’t love choices? Whether its plain simple breakfast or choosing your next outfit we love it when we have choice, don’t we? However, that doesn’t seem to apply to Taxation structures. This year’s budget has changed the tax slabs but left the choice of sticking to the previous tax slabs or switching to the new ones to you. The catch is if you switch to the new tax slabs, you cannot avail of any of the deductions & exemptions currently available. Here is a quick look at the tax slabs that are currently in existence and the new ones which you can choose to switch to.
How do you decide which of the two options you should choose? What you need to look at is the deductions and exemptions you are currently availing of. The most popular ones being
Rs 1.5 lakh under 80 C, the default option for most being EPF (ELSS, PPF, Life Insurance, School fees, Principal repayment of home-loan etc)
Medical insurance premium under section 80D of Rs 25,000 for self and Rs 50,000 for senior citizen parents (total of Rs 1,00,000 if both self and parents are senior citizens)
Additional deduction of Rs 50,000 for investments in NPS
Deduction of 2L on interested paid on a home loan under section 24(b)
Prevailing & Proposed Optional Income Tax Slabs proposed in Budget 2020
Broadly, if you are claiming home loan interest deduction apart from 80C, you are better off with the previous tax slabs. But if you are not and do not have default investments like EPF for claiming deductions under section 80C and you are currently investing in products especially for the deductions, you can opt for the new slabs.
Finwise Take→ While there is a choice being given currently, the intention clearly articulated has been to move away in the coming future from the exemption and deductions being offered currently. Given this scenario, if you are buying a house or starting a new NPS account primarily to avail of the exemption you may want to rethink your decision.
Currently, a large number of investment decisions are made (and products are sold) at the last moment, primarily on their tax-saving features. We think this is a good step since the products thus bought will pass the tests of suitability towards risk profile and time horizon, and will help investors create substantially more wealth than now. You would be better off seeking the help of a financial advisor to help you make the right decisions customised to your needs, especially given the above.
Increased insurance cover for FDs
Currently each depositor in a bank is insured upto Rs 1,00,000 inclusive of both principal and interest. This budget has increased this insurance limit to Rs 5,00,000, and this would help increase coverage and bring a greater number of impacted people under the insurance fold in case of bank defaults. This will give a lot of comfort, especially to senior citizens, for whom this is the investment of choice.
Finwise Take → While increased insurance cover is a welcome step, it can give investors, especially senior citizens who look for that extra percentage point to prop up their meagre savings, a false sense of security about otherwise “dangerous” investment options in this space.
Our belief is that this insurance benefit is a “perceived” comfort. This insurance is payable by the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation of India, a subsidiary of the RBI. DICGC will wait for the “defaulter” bank to be liquidated and de-registered, post which the DICGC receives claims from the banks and then pays out the claims, post necessary validations. The wait can be many years for impacted customers, and this risk is definitely not worth taking for extra percentage point of interest.
Our advice to our customers has always been to be safe with debt investments and not take any kind of risk with debt. Credit risk while investing in banks like PMC was ignored and has now come to the forefront. Insurance or no insurance, it is important not be lured by a few percentage points higher return. We often tell our customers to beware of higher interest rates, which some banks or institutions are offering, since higher-then-prevailing interest rate means higher than intended risk, which is opaque to the retail investor and our stance holds going forward too.
TDS introduced for FDs in cooperative banks
Now, cooperative banks will also need to deduct tax at source on fixed deposits and recurring deposits if the interest exceeds 40K (50K for Senior citizens).
Finwise Take → Earlier this was another big draw for investors to invest in co-operative bank FDs, apart from the higher interest rates. This welcome move will encourage people to think beyond tax and interest rate, while choosing their bank for FDs.
Cap of 7.5L on exemption to retirement contribution by employer
As of now employer contributes 12% of basic towards EPF, Rs. 1,50,000 towards super annuation and 10% of basic towards NPS, and any amount of contribution to retirement benefits is exempt from income tax ie. is deducted from your gross income to calculate taxable income. The new budget has introduced a cap to this exemption, from the next FY, only contributions upto Rs 7,50,000 put together towards all retirement benefits will be exempt and any contribution over and above that will be taxed at your slab rate.
Finwise Take → This is a big change and has a significant impact on high net-worth individuals having corporate careers. Senior corporate professionals earning approx. Rs 1 cr or above are likely to be impacted by this while, of course, actual impacts will be dependent on individual salary structures. For eg. someone earning a basic of Rs 2,50,000 per month, will have an annual retirement benefit contribution of Rs 8.1 lakh (assuming contributions to all 3 benefits – EPF, Super-annuation & NPS), and will cross this tax-exempt threshold. For people with such high salaries, this will mean rejigging compensation structures to reduce institutionalized retirement benefits, which in turn will have the negative impact of also reducing the retirement corpuses that these benefits create, requiring such individuals to plan better individually for their retirement.
No more Dividend Distribution Tax
Currently, dividends received from shares and mutual funds are not taxed in your hands, they are paid post payment of DDT. DDT for shares is 20.56%, equity mutual funds is 11.64% and debt mutual funds is 29.12% before paying out the dividends. With new budget provision the dividend will be added to your income and taxed as per your income slab.
Finwise Take → While this is a welcome step for corporates, especially MNCs, since dividend income to MNC shareholders was earlier taxed and is now free, it not such good news for retail investors, especially those in the higher tax brackets.
If you have a largely direct-equity portfolio, the dividend yield will fall substantially. You should consider shifting to equity mutual funds under the growth option where the tax outflow is capped at 10% long-term capital gain, that too on redemption, for investments over one year.
If you have invested in equity mutual funds (both pure equity & equity hybrid) in the dividend option, you should shift to the growth option immediately, for reasons similar to above, since the differential impacts here are even higher than in direct equity.
For debt mutual funds, the approach was dual. For people either in lower tax brackets or for long-term debt allocations (> 3 years), it always made sense to remain in growth, since both tax slab rate and LTCG on debt is lower. Whereas only for investors in the highest tax slab for short term investments (< 3 years), dividend option was better, since the STCG on debt is as per tax slab. With this change now, across the board, growth is the option to go with in debt mutual funds.
Also, one needs to remember that this has made tax-returns filing a bit more cumbersome, since dividend incomes now need to be added to overall incomes to calculate taxes, which earlier was not the case, with DDT.
Just in case an investor in the lower tax bracket is holding on to debt funds under the dividend scheme (due to poor advice or ignorant purchase), they will be hugely benefited as they would need to pay tax as per slab which is lower than the 29.12% being paid by the debt funds.
Key changes for NRIs
Announcements in this section set the cat among the pigeons for NRIs, before clarifications led to clarity and calm. Some key changes
Taxation of global incomes of NRIs who are not tax-resident in any other country
Definition of Resident-tax – 120 or more days in India (reduced from earlier 182 days)
Definition of Resident but not ordinarily-resident – transition period increased to 4 years (from earlier 2 years)
Finwise Take →After giving a big scare to NRIs based out of the Middle East regarding taxing global income, there has been clarity that global income of residents of any country will not be taxed. While this doesn’t impact people resident in tax-free countries, people working in the merchant navy etc. may be impacted, since their long-period travels across the world may lead them to fall into this category of Non-Resident Indian but not resident of any other country.
In addition, such people will be doubly impacted by the second clause above, since they need to ensure they live in India for less than 120 days to classify as non-resident, as against 182 days earlier.
The last clause above is beneficial for NRI’s returning to India after living abroad for many years since it will give them more time without taxing their global income.
Do note that these are broad-based observations and not necessarily one-size-fits-all, do consult your financial planner / advisor for customized advice on your particular situation.
Finwise is a personal finance solutions firm that helps both NRI and resident individuals and families plan for their financial goals, follow their passions and achieve financial independence.
To receive our articles through email, pl/ subscribe here.
For advice, please reach us at getfinwise@finwise.in or +91 9870702277/9820818007.