5 Ways to Save Tax for Salaried Employees

It is the duty of every citizen of India to pay taxes. As a diligent taxpayer, it is imperative to know about the various deductions and exemptions allowed under various sections of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Besides, there are numerous other methods to reduce your tax liability largely.

Following are five most popular and common ways to save tax for salaried employees in India.

1. Submit medical bills to your employer on time

Most salaried individuals are eligible to receive medical reimbursement of INR 15000 as part of their Cost ToCompany (CTC). Therefore, you may claim a tax deduction for all your medical expenses up to this amount. For this purpose, you may submit all your medical bills, medical reports, lab test bills, or doctor’s consultation bills to your employer. It is important to note that such a tax benefit may be claimed only through your employer, and hence you may submit such bills to your employer on a timely basis.

2. Save tax through House Rent Allowance

House Rent Allowance (HRA) is a common component for many salaried individuals. The rules of tax deduction on HRA are stated in Section 10 (13A), Income Tax Act. The amount that may be claimed as exemption is a minimum of –

a) Actual HRA amount received

b) 50% of the salary in case you live in a metropolitan city or 40% for a non-metropolitan region

c) Excess of rent paid annually above 10% of your salary.

In order to claim deductions on House Rent Allowance, you may submit rent receipts to your employer.

3. Claim deductions under Section 10(14)

The good news for salaried individuals is that they may avail of numerous deductions as per Section 10(14) of the Income Tax Act. You may avail of deduction on children’s education allowance up to a maximum amount of INR 100 a month, per child, up to two children. Besides, you may seek deduction on hostel expenditure allowance of INR 300 a month per child up to two children. You may also claim an exemption on helper or assistant allowance as well as uniform allowance up to the amount of expenses incurred.

4. Invest in medical insurance

You may claim health insurance tax benefits on your health plan. A medical insurance plan is indeed an integral part of financial planning. Besides providing a great degree of financial security during a medical contingency, it also provides tax benefits. You may seek health insurance tax benefits on the premium paid towards your policy. You may claim health insurance tax exemptions on premiums paid for yourself, spouse, parents, and dependent children. According to Section 80D, medical insurancepremiums are exempted up to a maximum of INR 25000. In an event that you or any of the covered members are senior citizens, you may enjoy a higher limit of INR 30000. You may, therefore, avail of such health insurance tax exemptions and reduce your tax liability.

5. Maximize utilization under Section 80C

Section 80C of the Income Tax Act allows a maximum deduction of INR 1.5 lakh. You may claim a deduction on investments made in various financial vehicles such as Public Provident Fund (PPF), Unit-Linked Insurance Plans (ULIPs),National Savings Certificate (NSC), andEquity-Linked Savings Scheme, among others. You may also avail of this section to reduce your taxable income through premiums paid on life insurance plans. Besides, you may claim deductions on tuition fees paid for the education of two children.

The Income Tax Act allows for numerous such deductions and exemptions for salaried individuals. You may, therefore, avail of health insurance tax exemption, numerous investment vehicles, and HRA component of your salary, among numerous others. You may take advantage of them and lower the amount paid towards income tax.

How refinancing student loans frees up money for investing or to start your own business

Where can I get more capital? For the investor, startup, or entrepreneur this question is on your mind constantly. In some cases, the answer might be reducing your cash outflow. Plus, the benefits extend beyond just having more money to invest. Let’s find out more.

Monthly expenses

What if you could cut your utility bills in half? What would you do with the savings? While reducing energy consumption is always a good idea, there are limits to how much you can cut back. One of the biggest checks many people write each month is their student loan payment. 

If a significant portion of your monthly income is devoted to paying down student debt, that can increase your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio and make it harder to borrow money to start a business, or buy a car or house. Many graduates with student loan debt even forgo marriage or having children due to the financial strain of their student loans. 

In many cases though, refinancing can remove this limitation. If you were to reduce your monthly student loan payment, you might end up with hundreds or thousands of dollars more to invest each year. 

How refinancing works

When you refinance your student loan, you basically swap your current loan for one with a lower interest rate. The end result is a smaller monthly student loan payment. This lets you free up capital to put towards personal investments or startup projects. An alternate strategy is to keep paying the same monthly payment, but shorten the overall payment terms. This allows you to pay off your debt faster. 

What method you choose depends on your overall investment horizon. If you need the cash now, then lowering your monthly payment is probably best. 

How much refinancing can save you

In many cases, the savings from refinancing student loans at lower interest rates can be substantial. Your savings will depend on how much of an interest rate reduction you can qualify for, and how long you take to pay your loan off.

When you refinance, you may choose to:

● Lower your monthly payments, but take more time to repay your loan. This will lower your DTI, but could increase your overall repayment costs.

● Get the most savings by increasing your monthly payments, paying off your loan faster. This could increase your monthly payment, and your DTI.

● Stay on the same repayment schedule, but with a lower monthly payment and overall repayment costs. 

Borrowers who have used the Credible marketplace to refinance into loans with shorter repayment terms have reduced their interest rate by 1.71 percentage points, and are on track to pay $18,668 less over the life of their new loan, on average. 

Debt-to-Income ratio benefit

Besides freeing up cash, refinancing your student loan may have other benefits. For example, when you apply for a loan, lenders don’t look at your credit score alone. For many lenders your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio is even more important than your FICO score. It’s simple to calculate your DTI ratio; just take your total debt and divide it by your total income. 

When you refinance your student loan, your overall debt burden goes down. This means your DTI improves in the eyes of lenders. So if you need to take out more credit in the future, your chances of getting approved are better after refinancing. Also, the stronger your credit profile, the higher the chance you qualify for lower interest rates. This is a great strategy if you think you might need to inject cash into a future business venture. 

What are your priorities?

For some, investing means buying a property, starting a business, or purchasing stocks. For others, it’s buying a home to invest in your family’s future. No matter what your priorities are, refinancing your student loan can give you more financial freedom.

Credit: Is It Always Bad?

Credit gets a bad wrap in financial circles, especially those focused on helping folks get out of debt. However, is getting credit always such a dangerous thing? We’ll investigate below. 

Credit is Good - How The System Works

One reason that credit could be said to be good or at least valuable is that it is the system that allows you to make big-ticket purchases without having the cash to pay for them outright. Yes, OK, in an ideal world we’d all buy our yachts, houses, and vehicles in one single purchase, but in reality, this hardly ever happens. Despite this situation though, we can see get access to these things, and that is largely due to credit. 

Credit is Bad - Can Create Debt

The biggest problem that many people have with credit is the charges that are made to use it. These usually come in the form of interest. This is a fee that you pay on top of the money you owe back. 

The problem here is that if the interest rate you pay is set high or is not fixed, you can end up paying a large sum back, while still not paying off too much of the actual money that you owe. Something that can make it very difficult to get out of debt. 

Credit is Good - Choose To Use It Well

However, it is important to note that the issue with credit isn't strictly cut and dried. In fact, you have to remember that it the credit providers and cards are something that we choose to use. That means if we make a good choice it can be a helpful thing. 

Some people argue that this choice reduces when you don't have a good crediting rating and this forces you to pick credit offer with high repayments rates. However, as you can see from this post, it is just about doing your proper homework and finding the best offers out there to suit your needs. Then you can be in control of your credit borrowing instead of it being the other way around. 

Credit is Bad - Perpetuates The System

Some folks believe that the whole idea of credit is wrong, and it plays into our materialistic society. They suggest that it is something that keeps us in the trap of wanting things that we don't really need or can't afford just because we are exposed to them via adverts all of the time. To them it keeps us trapped in a system that works purely on consumerism and not need.

Credit is Good - Provides For Emergencies 

One factor that the critics of credit often forget is that for many people it is their only recourse when in the midst of an emergency. That means they don't put their grocery shopping on their credit card, and a trip to the mall certainly isn't something that they would use it for either. 

Instead, having access to credit means if they encounter a medical problem, or their vehicle is involved in an accident they can cover this cost. It also means they can pay and it won’t eat into the rest of their budget that is earmarked for other things. 

Yes, sometime it means paying off over a longer period. However, it also means you can set a payment that is affordable and won't interfere with your families everyday life style will still allowing the debt to be paid off. 

Credit is Bad - Lenders don't always check 

Last of all, some people perceive credit as bad because some lender are unscrupulous on who they are lending to. This means they grant credit without doing the proper checks and at a rate that most people struggle to pay off. Something that can cause serious problem for the browser while just making added money for the lender. 

Luckily, the financial industry has clamped down on these sort of lenders recently and the system is much more closely regulated. Something that makes it a lot harder for borrowers to get into unreasonable debt solely by using credit.  

In Conclusion 

Unfortunately, most us cannot change the system or even go against it in our everyday lives. That is why, in conclusion, it is much more productive to see credit as useful service that can help out in emergency situations such as when medical fee need to be arranged, and when we need to make larger purchases. Credit, in fact, could be said to be a good thing for the most part, as long as we handle it correctly.

Keeping Your Company Strong & Secure

Company security is something that matters when you hope to grow and run a firm with influence. However, keeping your company strong and secure means maintaining it with wisdom. There are many difficulties that can arise in the effort to run a competent firm, and if you’re not careful you might find yourself in trouble to a degree. It pays to be strong whether or not you might encounter difficulty in the future. The reality of you potentially facing something that could compromise your business pales in comparison to the possibility of something going wrong. What we mean by this is that it’s always best to be prepared for everything than trying to resolve the pressing and immediate. This allows you to respond in the best and fastest way possible - giving you time for a deft reaction and response. 

Fault Defense

It’s easy to become accused of something that you might not be part of. Companies are often levied with accusations from sources either legitimate or fake, and what matters is the ability to meet those well. If a legitimate accusation is cast, that might mean you need to change the reason it was cast. However, often business leaders can be thrown into a false accusation pile, and terms such as insider training, embezzlement or other difficulties can be levelled at you.

You might be thinking ‘well how probably is that to happen?’ It could be more frequent than you think. For example, a jaded ex-business partner, ex-employee or perhaps someone trying to sabotage a merger or acquisition might try to stall this or interrupt you by levelling false accusations. In these cases it’s important to have a federal criminal lawyer on hand to help you separate the wheat from the chaff and respond in the most responsible way possible.

To prevent things like this from occurring, it might be wise to begin:

Vetting Clients & Employees

You might find that many business connections are made in the process of networking your business. From clients to business to business connections to the employees you bring on the team, it could be that vetting your social connection is worthwhile. You can never dig into the full past of someone you do business with, but you can sure look for red flags from employees and businesses. 

In the case of businesses, any wrongdoing will likely be publicised. You might find this through articles published from news sources, general reputation commentary online through social media, or looking for reviews from ex-employees. Vetting clients might be in the form of a credit report, particularly if you’re in the business of lending your own credit card or selling things on finance. For employees, checking their criminal history, their working history and speaking to their old managers could be critical in truly getting the full picture of someone’s personality. After all, not everyone is who they say they are, or acts how they come across in the first instance of the interview.

With the right methodology and exacting eye, your social and legal defence could be worthwhile, but only if you take note of the previous tips and enact them wisely.

Anyone Can Make A Recovery From A Serious Injury

Accidents happen

Everyone who’s been involved in an accident knows how horrible it is to have to deal with it. You’ve been dealt a great deal of damage, and it can possibly even be life-changing, so how do you ensure you get the best recovery possible in this situation? First of all, you need to look at your situation. If you’ve been severely injured, is money going to be a concern for you? For many people, sustaining these permanent damages can mean being out of a job, as they’re not physically able to do it anymore; so finding the money to cover the medical bills and insurance is a real pain and can work out to be a stressful endeavor. However, you shouldn’t panic, as there are a number of options out there you can have a go at, and possibly secure your future!

Compensation

If you’ve been in an accident that wasn’t your fault, you may be entitled to a legal compensation from the individual or organisation who is at fault, Whether it was intentional or not, there are certain safety procedures and laws out there to prevent this kind of thing. Contact a professional like the DBA law firm to see if you could get help with your case. It might seem like a big investment to make, but if you’re going to be struggling with an income,  you should try your hardest to get that compensation money. Professionals can give you their insight on the case, and also offer a wide range of resources and connections to help you win it.

Incomes

Well, if you’ve been forced to find money elsewhere and you don’t know where to go, you might want to start looking at options you may not have considered before. Surprisingly, there’s a lot of ways to make money from your home, which means if you struggle to get around because of your afflictions, you don’t have to give up hope in surviving. First of all, it’s quite common for people to start up their own blog so that they can generate an income. The way it works is, the blogger generally keeps a public diary/journal in a sense and writes for the world to see. Typically, it’s done with a personality and pictures to entertain the readers, and sometimes they even provide tips and advice for everyday living. You can bet that you can find all kinds of information on a blog, so don’t be afraid if you feel you have nothing to offer!

You shouldn’t let an injury beat you, even if it’s had the worst effect on you. You may feel damaged and vulnerable, but there’s still a lot out there for you, you just have to look for it! No matter the affliction, people from all kinds and corners of the world are achieving their goals and dreams without letting their disabilities get in the way. It might seem harsh to look at it that way but, you can’t get through your problems if you don’t head forwards!

Importance and Benefits of Cashless Policies

Earlier, insurance providers used to provide reimbursement for all the expenses borne by the insured. However, these days, most insurers offer the benefit of cashless settlement of claims. According to this arrangement, the insurance providers settle all the expenses with their network providers. You, therefore, do not have to make any out-of-pocket expenses towards the huge medical bills.

It is important to note that in order to avail of the benefit of cashless insurance, it is necessary to visit any of the providers in the insurer’s network. You may view the Third Party Administrator’s (TPAs) website to identify the comprehensive list of hospitals or garage networks, in the case of cashless car insurance.

Cashless policies entail a lot of importance. Following are the three major benefits of cashless policies.

1. Prevents financial strain

The major benefit of a cashless insurance policy is that it prevents financial burden. You do not have to bear any out-of-pocket expenses. This ensures that you do not have to run around arranging funds. Besides, there is no need to liquidate any long-term investments such as mutual funds. Additionally, you do not have to deplete your lifetime savings to meet your expenses. Since the insurance provider settles your bills you may enjoy a great degree of financial freedom.

2. Ensures that you receive quality treatment

In an event of a medical crisis, a cashless mediclaim policy helps you receive the best treatment. You may avail of excellent healthcare facilities without having to pay for any hospital-related expenses, such as domiciliary treatment costs, in-patient care expenses, alternative treatment cost, and ambulance charges, among others. All you have to do is display your health insurance card at the network hospital and fill in the pre-authorization form. The hospital will then forward the application to the TPA. Once the cashless health insurance application is approved successfully, you may receive treatment from the network hospital without making a single payment.

3. Provides value-added services

Greater the annual payouts by the insurance provider to the network companies, higher will be the negotiation power for discounts and offers. This benefit may be directly passed on to the customers. You may save a certain amount on your sum insured and utilize the same towards any subsequent event in the future.

The popularity of cashless insurance has indeed grown. You too may invest in such an insurance policy and avail of the numerous benefits it has to offer. In case you wish to opt for cashless benefit, you may buy insurance online or visit your local branch. By doing so, you may safeguard your financial well-being and have peace of mind knowing that you do not have to bear any financial burden.