MS Community Tech Days - Pune

Should you invest in Infrastructure Bonds

Tax: Should you invest in Infrastructure Bonds?

March 09, 2010 18:00 IST

One of the fresh tax reliefs in the Budget 2010 is the deduction allowed for investing up to Rs 20,000 in infrastructure bonds.
Many media articles and the finance minister have said that this is a very positive thing. But how can the same thing be positive for every individual? If not negative, it should at least be neutral for many. Else life would be so boring.
This article will try to look the pros and cons of investing in infrastructure bonds for the sake of tax-saving. The analysis will be from the perspective of the different 'tax groups' post Budget 2010.

• Tax group 1: Taxable income Rs 1.6 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.
• Tax group 2: Taxable income Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh.
• Tax group 3: Taxable income above Rs 8 lakh.

To understand the pros and cons of any tax-saving investment, we need to look at four major parameters:

• Actual tax-saving (let's take the highest saving possible);
• Returns from the investment (during the lock-in period at the least);
• Opportunity cost (what if the same money had been invested in some other investment?); and
• Effect of Inflation on the returns on investment (what would the worth of your investment be when it comes to redeem/encash it?).

Assumptions
For the sake of parameter 2, we will have to make an assumption on the lock-in period (as nothing has so far been announced by the finance minister). As is generally the case with most tax-saving instruments we can assume two scenarios -- a 3-year lock-in and a 5-year lock-in.
Let's assume the rate of return on infrastructure bonds = 5.5% per annum.
Let's consider the overall rate of inflation at 8%.
For people in the Rs 1.6-5 lakh taxable income group, income will be taxed at the rate of 10%.
Parameter 1: Actual tax-saving: 10% of Rs 20,000 = Rs 2,000 (if you invest Rs 20,000 in the instrument you get to reduce your taxable income by Rs 20,000 thus giving a 10 per cent benefit).
Parameter 2: What will be the returns at the end of the lock-in period? For a lock-in period of 3 years an investment of Rs 20,000 would fetch an income of Rs 3,484. When added to the tax saved we get an effective return of Rs 25,485 (Rs 20,000 + Rs 3,484 + Rs 2,000) on our investment.
Parameter 3: If this same amount were to be invested in a market instrument that fetched a return of 15% (which is very reasonable considering that the benchmark Sensex and many mutual funds have given comparatively higher returns over a long period), the investment would fetch an effective return of Rs 27,376 (Rs 20,000 - Rs 2000 = Rs 18,000 invested @15% per annum for 3 years).
Parameter 4: What would be the minimum amount required to counter inflation at 8%? The amount would be Rs 25,194.
Thus we see that for a person in the Rs 1.6-5 lakh slab, the benefit from investing in an infrastructure bond as a tax-saving instrument will be only Rs 291 (Rs 25,485 - Rs 25,194) whereas the benefit from paying tax and investing the balance in any decent instrument would be Rs 2,182.
Similarly, we can calculate the benefits for each segment as well as for a scenario where the lock-in period is 5 years as given in the table below.

Rate of tax	Investments in Infrastructure Bonds			Tax paid in lieu of investing in Infrastructure Bonds
Slab	Tax-savings	Effective Returns		Investment Returns from Market after Tax
		3 years	5 years	3 years	5 years
30%	6,000	29,485	32,139	21,292	28,159
20%	4,000	27,485	30,139	24,334	32,182
10%	2,000	25,485	28,139	27,376	36,204
Required Returns to Counter Inflation Effect		25,194	29,387

The bottomline
As seen from the table above, it makes sense for people in the over Rs 8 lakh taxable income slab to use the infrastructure bonds as a tax-saving instrument.
For the people in the Rs 5-8 lakh bracket, it would be advisable to invest in infrastructure bonds if the period of investment is 3 years, but not for five years and for those in the Rs 1.6-5 lakh bracket, it would be an absolute no-no to invest in Infrastructure Bonds for tax-saving purpose.

Ref:  Rediff

Best Wishes of Golden Jubilee of Maharashtra !!!

Me Marathi … Jay Maharashtra

Need your Support for the School Kit Drive 2010

Hello All,

Schools will re-open shortly. For most children, the excitement of the first day in the new class will begin with new books, new pencils, new pens, new school bags… But there will be a lot of those who would be wishing that their parents too had good money to buy these for them.

To bring the excitement into the lives of these needy children, Seva Sahayog is back with the School Kit Donation Drive ‘2010.

For last 2 years, Seva Sahayog(SS) has been running ‘School kit donation drive’ to gift a School Kit to school-children from economically weaker sections of the society. The School kit contains 1 School bag, 10 notebooks, Pen, Pencil, and a Compass box. The kits are distributed to children from slums, schools, and education-support-centers run by NGOs in and around Pune. Last year, SS were able to bring smile on 10,000+ children’s faces because of 200+ volunteers from various IT companies.

This year SS’s target is to reach 25,000+ children in slums and villages in and around Pune. We all can surely help these children get this joy.

The school-kit costs only Rs. 250.

You can check the document of last year’s report at: http://schoolkit.info/sites/default/files/resource/Report_SK09_new_final.pdf

You could find more about School kit program at: http://www.sevasahayog.com

We look forward to your support again this year to make School Kit Donation Drive 2010 a success.

You may do the following to help these children:

·         Donate for 1 or multiple school kits (You can get tax benefit on donation).

·         For donation you can contact me on 9850875884 or send a cheque in the name of 'Seva international'  to:

Seva Sahayog,
Flat no.7 , Top floor,1015/4 Shreya Apt.

Near Swanand hospital,

Deep bunglow chowk,
Shivaji Nagar

Pune - 411016.

·            Forward this mailer to all your friends, colleagues, employees who may want to help

·            Set up a stall at your office during lunch time for the whole week, and campaign for donations.

·           Collect cheques and cash donations along with donor details, and hand them over to any member of Seva  sahayog. (Donor information form & receipts will be provided by Seva Sahayog).

·         Volunteer your time for assembling the school kits.

Thanks,

Avinash Chougule

IPL Pune Team name is Sahara Pune Warriors

IPL Pune Team Name ..... is "Sahara Pune Warriors"


     The latest entrant to the IPL Team - IPL Pune - announced the name of its team today. Sahara India who won the bid for this new team had released the name today on 24th April. Fans all over are curious to know the name of the IPL Pune.


     As you know IPL Kochi is the other team that will join IPL Pune and 8 other IPL teams from the next season of IPL.

Sahara Present Pune IPL Team Opening Show on 24th April 2010

Sahara Present Pune IPL Team Opening Show At S.p. college ground pune 6.30pm

Would like to see this Poster on Hoardings all over India

For the moment please pass it on to all your friends and relatives......