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The SGB Issue: Why Tax Certainty Matters

Advice, Financial, Governments, Investments, Personal Finance, RIA, Taxes / By /

Imagine a Test match where the host prepares two pitches — a green top for fast bowlers and a dry track for spinners. Before the match, it announces that the green top will be used, and the visiting team selects its players accordingly. After the toss, the host switches to the dry track — the one prepared for itself. In cricket, this would be called unfair play. In taxation, it is called a retrospective change. That is what the Budget 2026 proposal does by removing the capital gains exemption on Sovereign Gold Bonds (SGB) already bought.

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Virtual retro tax overshadows many positives of this Budget

Governments, Mutual Fund, Personal Finance, RIA, Taxes, Uncategorized / By /

Budget 2026 offers several promising reforms, but one provision threatens to overshadow them all: taxing capital gains on Sovereign Gold Bonds bought from the secondary market. Previously, RBI redemption was tax-exempt regardless of how the bonds were acquired; restricting this benefit only to original subscribers is effectively retrospective, with an estimated impact of about ₹8,000 crore.

Other measures are constructive—TRS-based sell-downs could deepen the corporate bond market; overseas individuals of non-Indian origin may soon invest in Indian equities; and proposals such as exempting global income of returning experts and enabling online low-TDS certificates could ease frictions for talent and startups. Yet some areas fall short, including limited relief in TCS on overseas tours and a less calibrated STT hike.

Rolling back the SGB amendment is essential to avoid reviving concerns over retrospective taxation and to let the Budget’s genuine positives shine through

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Bolster dispute platform, skip ombudsman creation

Advice, Fees, Financial, Investments, Mutual Fund, Retirement, RIA / By /

Smart ODR has worked well, resolving about 75% of the disputes referred to it within three months. It has enabled disputes to be resolved far faster than courts and without requiring SEBI to decide individual cases. What it lacks, however, is institutional memory. Because arbitration orders are not published, each dispute starts from scratch, and the same questions keep recurring—making arbitration efficient in the moment, but wasteful in the long run.

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Cryptos Risks are Structural, its Returns are not

Advice, Crypto, Fees, Financial, Investments, Mutual Fund, Personal Finance / By /

Ganesh’s winning bet in the 1983 World Cup final was worthless because it was unenforceable. Crypto carries a similar risk. Even when prices move in your favour, weak regulation, custody failures, fraud, and legal irreversibility can wipe out gains entirely. As crypto returns compress toward levels seen in traditional assets, its risks remain open-ended. Without enforceability or recourse, a “winning” investment can still end in total loss—making crypto suitable, at best, only for speculative “mad money,” not for serious financial goals.

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Unclaimed Assets: Easy Searchability, Not Opacity, Cuts Fraud

Banking, Insurance, Investments, Mutual Fund, Personal Finance, RIA / By /

India’s ₹2 lakh crore pile of unclaimed assets remains largely out of reach not because citizens are unwilling to claim them, but because the system makes discovery nearly impossible. Official portals demand prior knowledge of assets, defeating their very purpose. As a result, meaningful restitution is rare, while private intermediaries succeed where the state does not. Without a unified, searchable database focused on discovery, initiatives like Aapki Poonji – Aapka Adhikar risk becoming symbolic rather than transformative. Truth be told, transparency—not opacity—is the real safeguard against fraud.

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How options trading became India’s new smoking habit

Uncategorized / By /

Once romanticised like smoking in 1960s cinema, options trading has become India’s new aspirational vice. Cloaked in technical jargon and regulatory legitimacy, it promises quick wealth while quietly delivering losses—over 93% of retail traders lose money. Recent SEBI orders expose an ecosystem of sophisticated extraction and misleading “education.” If options trading is to be deglamourised, regulation alone won’t suffice; it will require sin taxation, punitive treatment of speculative gains, and sustained cultural signalling—much like the long battle that stripped cigarettes of their allure.

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Retirement income: Systematic withdrawals win over dividends

Banking, Governments, Investments, Mutual Fund, RIA, Taxes / By /

Investors often prefer “income” like dividends over withdrawing capital, even when withdrawals are more tax-efficient.
Austin, investing ₹5 crore for retirement, shared this instinct and favoured the dividend option to avoid “touching capital.”
Behavioural research by Shefrin and Statman shows investors treat dividends as safe, approved income, while selling units feels uncomfortable.
This mental accounting bias is widespread and reinforced by the social-media push for “second incomes.”
But relying only on income requires a much larger corpus and can derail retirement planning.
Recognising these biases helps investors accept disciplined SWPs or products that withdraw only from gains.

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When paying fees hurts: Why investors favour commissions

Banking, Fees, International, Investments, Mutual Fund, Personal Finance, RIA / By /

When Paying Fees Hurts: Why Investors Favour Commissions
Nobel Prize–winning behavioural economist Richard Thaler showed that people spend far more when the payment feels painless — like using a credit card instead of cash. The “pain of paying” is strong when money leaves your hand, but much weaker when the cost is hidden or delayed. The salience also drops because the price of a ticket gets buried among dozens of items in the credit-card bill. A ₹10,000 ticket feels expensive on its own, but as part of an ₹80,000 bill it seems acceptable.
This simple insight explains why investors resist paying visible fees to advisers but readily accept commissions embedded in financial products. Fees deducted from investments (as in PMS) are also less painful than fees paid separately by cheque.

This pattern holds worldwide: wherever investors can choose between commissions and fees, most pick commissions because they feel painless. Only in countries like the UK and Australia — which have banned commissions — do large numbers of investors pay fees directly.

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Your credit is easier to steal than your money

Advice, Banking, Financial, Governments, Investments, Mutual Fund, Personal Finance, RIA / By /

Your credit is easier to steal than your money.
With just a phone number and an OTP, fraudsters can trick lenders into approving loans in your name — without your knowledge. Weak consent systems, no instant alerts, and rushed digital lending have made identity theft alarmingly easy. It’s time India strengthens its safeguards with verified consent, real-time alerts, and stricter ID checks to truly protect borrowers.

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Programmable currency: Ensuring donors money is used right

Banking, Governments, Mutual Fund, RIA / By /

Programmable currency can transform the way money is given and used by allowing it to be spent only for its intended purpose. Just as governments could ensure subsidies are used for food or education, individuals like Hema could send money coded specifically for school fees, guaranteeing its proper use without adding friction. With consent-based visibility and universal acceptance, this next step in India’s digital journey could combine trust, traceability, and dignity — empowering millions to give with confidence and impact

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Vigilance Awareness Week 2025 (VAW2025)

Vigilance Awareness Week 2025 is being observed from October 27th to November 2nd, 2025, with the theme:

सतर्कता: हमारी साझा जिम्मेदारी (“Vigilance: Our Shared Responsibility”).

All stakeholders are encouraged to participate in the e-pledge initiative by visiting the CVC portal: https://pledge.cvc.nic.in/.