Taxing time ahead, plan your options

With barely a few days left before the current financial year (2007-08) comes to an end, it's time to pay taxes and file returns.

Though tax planning, ideally, needs to be done as early as the first month of the financial year (April), there are still a few options one can use to save taxes in these last few days.

If a taxpayer is an aggressive equity player, he or she cannot evade capital gains tax (CGT). But if the portfolio has some dud stocks, one should sell them rather than waiting for these stocks to appreciate.

This is because though the profits would have been great till December, the sharp slump since January would have eroded the value of many stocks.

According to tax expert Kanu Doshi, booking losses before March 31 will help such investors to minimise CGT liability.

CGT is charged at 10 per cent on the profits made by an investor in the stock market within one year. It is not applicable on stocks that were bought, or held, more than a year ago. So, if an investor has made a loss of Rs 3 lakh and a profit of Rs 10 lakh, he can save CGT up to Rs 30,000.

However, financial planner Mukesh Dedhia has more to say. "This should be done keeping in mind that capital gains tax has been increased to 15 per cent in the current year's Budget," he said, suggesting that if cash-flow is not an issue, same losses can be shown in the next financial year, where the tax relief will be higher.

Another way to save tax is looking at all the options under Section 80C. Experts said most taxpayers use the public provident fund (PPF) route quite abundantly by investing Rs 70,000 (the upper limit) in it, but forget to use the rest Rs 30,000.

The remaining money can be invested in other government specified instruments such as equity-linked saving schemes (ELSS) or fixed deposits with a lock-in period of five years.

"ELSS is the best option for a taxpayer who has not planned well earlier. Investing now will give better returns as markets have tanked and stocks are available at an average 30 per cent discount," said Hitesh Pasat, a practising chartered accountant.

Of course, another important point is that if a taxpayer has not come under the income-tax bracket yet, he should still file the returns.

"The first thing income-tax officers do is look at the past record when someone files returns. In case, you have not filed your returns earlier, there could be unwanted complications," said Doshi.