Team FeeOnly

How to make tax return scrutiny less stressful

Personal Finance, Press, Taxes / By /

Centralised data collection by the Income Tax Department (ITD) has widened the tax base & led to higher tax compliance. Tax payers also benefit as more than 90%+ have their returns (and refunds) accepted within weeks instead of years earlier. The National Faceless assessment scheme (NaFAC) and the National Faceless Apellate Scheme (NFAC) were rung in by the ITD with lofty aims of simplifying the tax administration for those assessee’s whose returns were selected for detailed scrutiny (which remains a large number). Harsh’s article in the Business Standard on how a combination of stiff tax collection targets, overbearing and antioquated attitudes of the ITD officials and a complete lack of accountability had given a bad name to NaFAC and NFAC which otherwise might have taken their place among the host of population scale technologies such as Aadhar, UPI, Account Aggregator and ONDC that have been introduced by India in recent times.

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Unclaimed assets: Create searchable databases

Financial, Governments, Press / By /

Give a gift worth lakhs to your loved ones this new year without costing a penny to you. Visit iepf.gov.in, click on “Search unpaid/unclaimed amount” under the “Services” tab, and enter their names in the search box and discover unclaimed shares in their name on the #IEPF website. The probability of discovering lost treasures for your loved ones is much higher if they are born before 1970.
IEPF has recently changed its search functionality to display potential unclaimed amounts/shares based on the inputted name without requiring any more information. Unclaimed shares/dividends worth Rs. 52,000 crores are with IEPF. Similarly large amounts (bank deposits – Rs. 35,000 crores), Insurance-Rs. 25,000 crores, Inactive/unclaimed Mutual Funds (Rs. 18,000 crores) , Provident fund/Small saving schemes (amounts unknown) exist throughout the financial sector. The Finance minister has already announced an integrated portal to ease the process of searching and claiming such amounts.

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Creating a balance sheet for every Indian

Financial, Personal Finance, Press / By /

“The Account Aggregator System should enable the easy compilation of a Balance Sheet for every Indian” – was the clarion call provided by Mr. K V Kamath as he went to the heart of the matter in his characteristic style. This was amply borne out by Harsh’s experience in providing financial planning services to his household help Sapna and her family. Such experience can be repeated with millions of Indian families if the potential of the Account Aggregator System(#AAS) is fully unlocked. #AAS has been ably helmed by RBI and is a great example of what inter regulatory coordination (RBI, SEBI, IRDA, PFRDA & GST) can achieve. Despite its undoubted potential a few steps (outlined in the article) by the regulators can unlock the full potential of AAS and enable it to live up to the goal set by Kamath Sir. It will also assist the investment advisory profession to shed it’s elitist tag and strive towards the goal of a financial plan for every Indian.

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Weigh the risks of EB-5 citizenship route

Financial, International, Investments, Personal Finance, Press / By /

Originating in Africa, Humans migrated to the remotest corners of the earth primarily to find food, avoid the threat of deadly predators or the danger from domination by other human species or due to dramatic changes in the climate. There is an intriguing scientific theory that unforced migration is motivated by simple curiosity and boredom, what is often called wanderlust. This is credited to a variation in the human DNA (DRD4-7R) now dubbed the “wanderlust gene”. Present in about 20% of the population, it impacts dopamine levels, increasing the person’s tolerance for risk taking including exploring new territories. Those willing for (or seeking) greener pastures in other countries have a larger capacity for risk taking. But can that innate larger risk taking ability justify staking your life savings in an “risky investment for citizenship” plan like US’s EB-5. Harsh’s article in Business Standard today. Your feedback most welcome.

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Savour the joys of delayed gratification

Personal Finance, Press / By /

Its festival time and all of us are besieged with exhortations to Buy! Buy! Buy! with discounted deals and “Buy now Pay later” schemes making it easy on the pocket. Credit artificially expands the amount of money available and reduces the “pain of paying”. This pushes people to satisfy their innate desire for instant gratification which is beautifully explained in this short 90 second video from behavioural economist Dan Ariely of “Predictably Irrational” fame (https://vimeo.com/62116854 ) . My article in Business Standard on the Double AA framework for differentiating between Good loans and Bad loans and how you can use the “Pay now Buy later” strategy to savour the joys of delayed gratification. Read more..

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Curbing one’s competitive streak can be rewarding

Press, Uncategorized / By /

Evolution through natural selection favours individuals seeking higher rank in social hierarchy as that allows preferential access to mates, food and other resources. This inherent competitive streak has benefitted humankind through the ages as it is responsible for its progress but it also has negative long term impact. This is bought out best by the character Farhan in “3 Idiots” when he says “you feel bad when your friends flunks but feel even worse when he tops” – https://bit.ly/45MJo3E – It can also be seen when people spend lavishly (way beyond their means) on weddings, holidays or other personal expenses in a desperate bid to shore up their ranking in the social hierarchy . Humans are the only beings that are capable of thinking and taking these long term costs into account if only they become conscious of it. Read Harsh’s article in the Business Standard.

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Unified death reporting is the need of the hour

Governments, Press / By /

A loved one has passed away. You are the nominee in all the mutual funds and shares owned by the deceased. You dread the multiple trips and the time to be spent and efforts required to follow different rules at each of the 7 MFs in which the loved one had investments & the 2 Depository participants where the shares were held. Now Imagine this. You submit the death certificate and the PAN of the deceased at one of the MFs. Within a week all the 7 MFs and both the DPs reach out to you proactively on their own with the details of the standard forms and steps required to get the assets transmitted to your name. If that sounds like Fantasy – it will be true starting on January 1, 2024 – many thanks to a path breaking circular issued by SEBI. No comparable mechanism exists anywhere else in the world Thanks to the white paper – written by Pramod Rao (in his personal capacity) – foreword by Mr K V Kamath – inputs & published by ARIA. Read Harsh’s article in Business Standard for more..

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Appeal to ‘slow mind’ to wean investors off F&O

Financial, Governments, Investments, Press / By /

Can you solve this puzzle : A bat and a ball together cost ₹ 1,100.
The bat costs ₹ 1,000 more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?

If your answer was ₹ 100, that´s incorrect.
The right answer is ₹ 50.
Nobel Laureate and behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman cites this example in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, to introduce the concept of the ´fast mind´ (which provides intuitive answers without conscious deliberation), and the ´slow mind´ (which is supposed to deliberate and endorse or reject the fast mind´s intuitive answers).
The fast mind´s immediate answers can be frequently wrong.
The slow mind is lazy and prone to biases.
Yet, with the right training, the slow mind can be tutored to amend the fast mind´s intuitive answers.
So what does this interesting puzzle have to do with weaning Individual Indian investors away from speculating in Futures & Options ? Read Harsh’s article in Business standard to know more..

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Track finfluencer earnings, and have alot more RIAs

Press, RIA, Taxes / By /

SEBI has an unenviable task of controlling the unregulated finfluencers and also ensuring that there enough RIAs to educate investors . Information on the income of “Finfluencers” is not easily available which may be inhibiting SEBI from taking preventive action against the finfluencers. Harsh suggest a creative use of the IncomeTax Act to providing real time update on the finfluencers to allow the regulator to concentrate its resources on them. Harsh’s article in Business Standard..

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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/.