New Years Day is over and you've got back to office to find HR has issued dire warnings about submitting proofs of investing in tax saving instruments or facing a massive deduction in the next 3 months salary. How did this happen, you think? There seemed like so much time and now....
Before you start getting frantic, remind yourself that you've already planned out the tax saving for the year. You just need to follow the below steps and you can quickly put everything in place.
Before you start getting frantic, remind yourself that you've already planned out the tax saving for the year. You just need to follow the below steps and you can quickly put everything in place.
1. Call your insurance advisor or the call centre and ask for the premium paid certificate for this financial year. Don’t forget, if you’ve paid for an annual health check-up, you can claim that amount too along with health insurance premium amount
Applicable sections are
Sec 80C for life insurance premium paid amount
Sec 80D for health insurance premium paid amount
Sec 80C for life insurance premium paid amount
Sec 80D for health insurance premium paid amount
2. Call your mutual fund advisor and ask for a statement of investment in ELSS fund (equity linked savings scheme) for the financial year.
Applicable section is Sec 80C
3. If you have done any other investment like PPF, NSC, NPS, 5 year tax saver FD etc, gather up those receipts
Applicable section is Sec 80C
4. Call up your home loan provider and ask them to send you the interest and principal paid certificate
Applicable sections are
Sec 80C for principal paid against home loan
Sec 24B for interest paid
Sec 80C for principal paid against home loan
Sec 24B for interest paid
5. Gather up the receipts issued by the school for your children’s fees
Applicable section is Sec 80C
6. Call up your education loan provider and ask them for interest paid certificate
Applicable section is Sec 80E
A few things to remember
A few things to remember
- Creating online profiles for login and retrieving statements / tax certificate is cumbersome. Call your advisor or the call centre, they will mail it to your registered email
- Haven’t completed your investments? Don’t rush into something unsuitable. It’s extremely important to make the right investment. You can always claim a refund of excess tax paid later.
- Section 80C has the maximum options to invest. Chances are you already have investments going on applicable under this section but there is an upper limit of Rs 1.50 lakhs. Any investment above that will not be considered toward tax saving. Your EPF contribution (employee provident fund) will anyway cover a large chunk of it.
Submit your proofs to the HR department at the earliest. This way, they can do the calculations and raise any discrepancy or short-fall and then you have enough time to complete it. Hope this article helped you streamline the process. Reach out to me at mathewpravin@yahoo.com and I’ll be happy to clarify any further queries you have.
