Earning Less than 8 Lakh in Financial Year 2012-2013? Your Tax will Go Up

The taxpayers have one more reason to get frustrated with the recent budget. The Finance Minister not only kept the tax-saving limit under Section 80C unaltered, but the deduction under Section 80CCF for infrastructure bonds has been removed. This will cut down the total tax savings from 1.2 lakh to 1 lakh which will thrust up the payable tax for individuals.

The deduction was increased two years ago and it has to be extended every year through an amendment. Tax experts had dreaded the worst when the finance minister did not mention it in his budget speech this year. Finance Ministry sources now authenticate that the 20, 000 deductions has been allowed to tumble this year.

It has come clean by now that the change will not burn those with an income of less than 5-6 lakh a year. The taxpayers in this section generally did not invest in infrastructure bonds in a huge way as the tax benefit is lesser for this slab. In a lot of cases, these taxpayers failed to exhaust even their 1 lakh deduction limit under Section 80C.

Though for investors with an income of up to 8 lakh, the scrapping of Section 80CCF means that they will have to pay up to 2,060 more tax next year. It will be more difficult for female taxpayers, but the cruelest gust is held back for senior citizens and very senior citizens. These taxpayers will end up paying almost 4, 120 more as tax. Add the burn of the hike in service tax and you can see a bigger serving of your income going as taxes next year.

Strangely, the elimination of the deduction overlaps with the government's plan to boost the funds to be lifted up by infrastructure lenders in 2012-13. This limit has been doubled to 60, 000 crore. This is the cause, the experts thinks that the deduction should have been allowed to persist. Moreover, it comes at a time when the government wants to raise money for the cash-hungry infrastructure sector. "It is a blow to individual investors as it will actually push up their tax burden. The deduction should be restored immediately,” said DS Rawat, Secretary-General, Assocham.

From Deduction to Exemption

Spending too much time worrying about the scrapped tax deduction is not worth it.  On the contrary, we should think about the exemption you can gain through the tax-free infrastructure bonds. Contrasting to the tax-saving bonds under Section 80CCF, these bonds will not cut your tax outgo. Nevertheless, the interest they earn will be tax-free. The interest earned on Section 80CCF bonds is fully taxable, which decrease the post-tax yield for investors. Besides, the tax has to be paid every year, not on the maturity of the bond.

Alternatively, the income from tax-free infrastructure bonds is completely exempted. What's more, unlike the 20, 000 ceiling in the tax-saving bonds, there is no limit to the amount that a retail investor can park in these bonds. Kamal Rampuria, Senior Vice-President, AUM Capital Market  said, "While the tax-saving bonds under Section 80CCF gave better returns, even tax-free infrastructure bonds are a good option for investors in the highest income bracket.”

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10 Global Events of 2011-2012 that Shook the Stock Market

Global economy saw a great turmoil during the financial year 2011-12. There are a few considerable incidences which have influenced this. Moneycontrol.com has jotted down such events, right from S&P’s cutting U.S. credit rating to the Chinese slowdown. Let’s have a look.

1. May 14, 2011

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of International Monetary Fund, was disgraced and forced to resign. He faced a trial after being accused of sexual assault on a maid in his penthouse suite of New York's Sofitel Hotel. He resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund. He was also a lead-runner at the French presidential election, but after this incidence, his presidential ambitions were ruined.

2. May 17, 2011

Anti-capitalism demonstrations were started in Spain on this day. These protests were a series of ongoing demonstrations in Spain started on 15 May with an initial call in 58 Spanish cities. By September, they spread to Britain and U.S. via Chile, with tens of thousands, representing across 82 countries by October.

September 17, 2011

Occupy Wall Street movement started on started, in Zuccotti Park, of New York City's Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street was initiated by the Canadian activist group ‘Adbusters’ and has led to “Occupy protests and movements” around the world. The Occupy Wall Street protests are against social and economic inequality, greed, corruption and the unjustified influence of corporations on government, especially from the financial services sector.

3. August 6

The United States lost its top AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's, a United States-based financial services company. U.S. has lost its rating for the first time in history though there were concerns over the country's deficit and debt. “The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government's medium-term debt dynamics,” S&P said in a statement to Reuters. The CEO of S&P, Deven Sharma, was soon fired after this.

4. August 23

Gold price rose up to $1911.46 per ounce, which is highest monthly rise since 1999. This eventually happened after some investors sold the yellow metal on a notion of slowing economic growth. Amid crisis, U.S. Fed was taking measures to stimulate the U.S. economy. This made the investors take this decision of selling bullions.

5. September 15, 2011

Rouge trading hit one of Europe’s biggest banks, UBS, costing it up to $2 billion, which almost blow its reputation. This scandalous news pushed down its share by 10.8 percent. Director Kweku Adoboli was held responsible for this and eventually arrested. Sergio Ermotti is the new CEO of UBS.

6. October 5, 2011

World lost a genius and a visionary icon, Steven P Jobs. The Inc Chairman and Co-founder of Apple, who brought a revolution in the tech world of personal computer industry died out of Pancreatic Cancer.

February 29, 2012

Apple's market capitalization soared over $500 billion in trade. Today Apple stands at a market value of $546 billion, with around 63,300 employees.

7. November 6, 2011

Greek PM, George Papandreou, agreed to step down from power amidst crippling debt crisis. He is succeeded by Lucas Papademos, Vice president of the European Central Bank. This was a sign that the country was deep in trouble.

8. November 8, 2011

UN stated in a report that it has “serious concerns” about Iran’s nuclear activities and also has “credible” information that Tehran is working to develop atomic weapons. This notion alerted the West to reinforce sanctions against the Islamic republic.

February 19, 2012

Iran banned oil exports to Britain and France following sanctions put in place by the European Union and the United States in January.

9. December 8, 2011

The European Central Bank gave 489.2 billion euro in cheap, as a three-year loan to 523 banks. This step was taken in effort to seize the financial crisis in the euro zone. Though the markets cheered but this attempt did not fully pay-off and warranted a second round of easing from the ECB.

10 March 11, 2012

China has a trade deficit of $31.5 billion which is the biggest of the decade. This happened as imports increased faster than exports for the nation. China is trying to bring about a standard shift in functioning of the nation, by reducing the dependence only on the export.

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5 Best Mobile Apps to stay connected to IPL 2012

Every cricket fan must have these apps in their smartphone for this IPL season. It is surly a dream to watch all the IPL 2012 matched sitting at home, even if that is not possible you can stay connected with the IPL matches on the move with these apps. All these apps will provide you with live updates of every cricketing action and the match schedules. Check out the best mobile apps for IPL 2012.

1. IPL 2012 for Samsung Bada OS

The IPL 2012 for Samsung Bada OS offers real time match updates along with the player statistic. It also provides the full details about the match schedule; date, time, venue, teams and even the history of IPL series along with a detail profile of the player and his achievements in the IPL series till date.

The interesting feature of this app is the reminder, just set the match for reminder which you don’t want to miss, then the app will remind before 30 minutes of the match.

2. PlayUp for iOS

The PlayUp is a social networking app especially designed for gamers. Along with social networking the app provides real time score updates, match details and schedule. It not only offers the IPL score but also has provides the score and details about other international sports like World Football, Rugby, AFL, Hockey and much more.

You can pick any sports in the list, invite your friends and hang out during the live action. Best part of PlayUp is that it connects all this live sport to you and your friends, allowing you to instantly create private hangouts and message each another in real time around the action.

3. IPL 2012 with Live Score widget for Android

The IPL 2012 with Live Score is an amazing app available for free with a widget which provides real time live scores even if the app is not running. The app comes with a live detailed scorecard, live widget large and small, user friendly UI, player statistics, team statistics and you can even vote to your favorite team, batsman and bowler.

You can also enjoy many interesting features such as up-to-date match scorecard (even old matches), commentary, match photographs, player profile, points table, related latest news and interviews of players.

4. Official DLF IPL 2012 for BlackBerry

BlackBerry users can enjoy the IPL 2012 on the go for free with Official DLF IPL 2012. The app provides up-to-date match scores as they happen, schedule by results, fixtures and by team, teams and player profile sections, latest news and photos during the course of the tournament
and videos. The app has social media integration and also works on BlackBerry PlayBook.

5. IPL Live Streaming-Free for Android

The IPL Live Streaming-Free app allows streaming live IPL matches in normal as well as HD quality for free. You can even see the highlights of recently concluded matches. You just need to select popular channels in the apps and it streams it to your device. The app requires Flash player, make sure your smartphone supports Flash before using the app.

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