Flat opinions in the round world

Financial planning has gained more value than ever in an era of rising costs and expensive schooling. It is important to comprehend the fundamentals before delving into the nuances of financial planning. Management of money doesn't just require math. It traditionally means saving cash for the future. In handling finance, there are different angles involved. Financial preparation not only concerns the future, but also the present. As an investor, one's target would be to secure himself and the family a financially sound future. But the future, in fact, is only an illusion. One can never foresee what the future is going to bring. Thus, for the sake of the future, it is necessary not to compromise on the present. When planning for the future, instead of setting ambitious targets, look at what can best be achieved with your existing financial capital. Keep it clear A financial plan's basic purpose is to help investors take control of their own finances. It is advisable ...

 No one is spared from the wrath of an emergency, they claim. You might prepare very well to buy a home, finance the education of children, etc., and you would have nailed all the right investment instruments to save for it. But if you were to face an unexpected situation such as a work loss, family death, etc., which you are not prepared to handle, all your hopes could crumble and funds could be drained. Being prepared is the only way to go about it. Without upsetting any of the long-term plans or throwing you into a debt trap, a liquid fund worth six to 12 months of your cost could save you from an emergency situation. Here are five emergencies for which you have to prepare: Health Emergency : Hospital and medical costs have been shooting up over time and all your savings could be exhausted if an emergency hits you. For that matter, a suitable health policy could financially support you during a health emergency or a chronic disease. If you already have health insurance, ...

 In Tuesday's International Monetary Fund outlook, the dissemination of COVID-19 vaccines will fuel a stronger global economic recovery in 2021. The global economy will rise 5.5 percent this year, the 190-country lending organisation projected, after slipping 3.5 percent in 2020, the worst year since World War II. The new figure for 2021 is an improvement from the IMF estimate of 5.2 percent growth in October and will mark the fastest year of global growth since the 2010 financial crisis snapback. Vaccines should contain the spread of the virus and promote lockdowns by governments around the world and enable a return to normal economic activity. But the IMF also says that economies around the world will need their governments' help to compensate for the damage caused by the pandemic and warns that coronavirus mutations could cloud global health and economic growth prospects. The IMF said in an update to its World Economic Outlook that it expects the U.S. economy, the worl...

Over time, the gender gap in workplaces has narrowed. The disparity in pay has narrowed. Day-to-day duties are shared by both men and women in most urban households. Currently, in many cases, women are breadwinners. All these are welcome signs of the financial equality of women. Financial freedom, however, is not only limited to providing a stable source of income and sharing expenses with household citizens. It is also vital to safeguard one's future and develop resources to achieve aspirations. A lot of women still rely on their male counterparts to do it on their behalf when it comes to financial planning. Regardless of your marital status, whether single or married, widowed or divorced, you have to take care of your finances in any way. Let's look at a couple of main steps women need to take to improve their financial well-being. Set and save goals accordingly. You will not be able to earn an effective return in the optimal time frame if you are only hoarding money or...

  Just a third in India regularly save for their retirement, although, according to a survey, a comparable 33 percent of working-age respondents worldwide set little aside for their later lives. According to HSBC's 'Future of Retirement: Bridging the Gap' study, the lack of savings is likely to be due to low awareness of how much capital is required in retirement, as well as those who prioritise their immediate financial condition over preparing for their older years. Thankfully, for us, retirement is no longer a brief time tackled at the end of our lives. It can be a lengthy and very satisfying part of the life of a human. But with that, our 65 needs can be very different from our 75 or 85 needs, with very different financial consequences," said Ramakrishnan S, head of retail banking and wealth management at HSBC India." Ipsos conducted online research for this study on behalf of HSBC among 16,000 adults in 16 markets, including Australia, Argentina, Cana...

  What most of us lack as investors is the conviction, trust and expectation that our capital invested in equity will expand and deliver possibilities for wealth creation through stocks or equity mutual funds. This is a significant issue that contributes to the washing away of a great opportunity to make our hard-earned cash work for us. The only option possible to instil the conviction, trust and belief needed to invest in equity-related instruments, preferably by shared means, is to start investing in any household in the month and year in which a child is born. Will parents doubt that, over the next 25 years, their child will develop and not become a self-dependent person? Will they lack faith that in these years, their child will not become a capable person? Don't they make every effort to ensure the development and accomplishment of their child's goals and ambitions? If the response is that all of the said aspects will not be unclear, then one should certainly start inve...

  A very good product for tax planning as well as retirement planning is the Public Provident Fund (PPF) account. Since this is supposed to be your savings income, before retirement, it is not recommended to be withdrawn. PPF rules, however, have certain provisions for you to use this cash before its maturity. Let us see how you can do this. Loan toward equilibrium in PPF account Only after your PPF account has completed one full financial year from the end of the year of its opening can you make use of the loan facility. Let us use an example to understand this. So you will only be able to take advantage of the loan from the financial year beginning April 1, 2018 if you have opened your PPF accounts at any time between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017. At the end of the financial year, the amount of loan you will take against the PPF account is limited to 25% of the accumulated balance previous to the year in which you made your loan application. So, as of March 31, 2017, you ...

 The current ongoing agitation is led by 35 unions of farmers, 31 of whom are from Punjab alone, mainly wheat and paddy growers and the others from Haryana, Western U.P and M.P. For obvious reasons, the farmers' unions associated with the left wing political parties, Aam Admi Party, Akali Dal and Congress have also joined the agitation. Agitation is mainly led by Punjab farmers, who are the primary beneficiaries of wheat and paddy procurement at the Centre. They fear that central agencies such as the Food Corporation of India (FCI) could scale down the food procurement target set, and even the allocation system of the Public Distribution System (PDS) may turn to a system of direct transfer of benefits. They also recommend that the MSP (Minimum Support Price) be made compulsory. The agitation of farmers, which started as an intervention to remedy the farmers' grievance, now modified their key agenda to abolish the three Agriculture Reforms Acts and rejected the government'...

 Section 234D in the Income Tax Act, 1961 was incorporated in the Act to cover certain cases where the refund was given to the assessor according to intimation U/s 143(1) and it was later discovered after scrutiny evaluation that the assessor was not liable for refund or that the amount of refund was more than the amount refunded after processing the Income Tax Return u/s 1433(1) (1). For e.g. Mr. A filed for the Assessment Year 2017-18 Return of Income & total Tax Liabilities was Rs 8 Lacs. Prepaid Taxes of Rs. 9 Lacs in the form of TDS & Advance Tax. The ROI was filed with us 139(1) & the intimation was produced on 30/12/2017 & the Rs. 1 Lacs refund was processed & credited to the Assessee along with interest us 244A. Later, we were opened by the assessee's case 143(3) & notice 143(2) was given. The demand notices u/s 156 were released and the Assessee was liable to pay Net Demand of Rs 1.6 Lacs at the end of the evaluation order on 25/06/2019. The Ass...

There are debates about what the FM has in store for the Taxpayers with Budget 2021 round the corner & one of the talks doing rounds is a COVID-19 Cess. Let's have a short explanation of what and how this definition of Cess works exactly. Article 270 of the Indian Constitution confers on the Union the power to increase its revenue by levying a cess. In the name of cess for revenue generation, the Government may collect tax, but it shall be allocated for specific purposes only. A significant point to be noted is also that central cess collections are not shared under revenue devolution with states. Swachh Bharat Cess (SBC) was declared in the 2015 budget, while we came across Krishi Kalyan Cess (KKC) in the 2016 budget the following year. Such and many other cess were implemented in previous years as and when necessary. Once the function was fulfilled, these were abolished later. The only functioning cess is a 4 percent Health and Education Cess at present. This is a...

by Shashank Agrawal Amongst various of its forms, Bribery is a widespread form of corruption. Bribery is considered to be more heinous form of corruption as the person who is not legally entitled to a right over something gets it in consideration of some value exchange, usually. Bribery involves at least two parties one who gives the bribe and other one is at the receiving end. Though both the parties are legally culprit for spreading this crime, but through this blog post I put a thought that the bribe giver in certain cases should not be penalized and have mercy from the court of law. By doing this, the interests of bribe giver and bribe taker will be at variance and bribe giver will be keener to help the law and make the bribe taker get caught. For the purpose of classification, bribes are detailed of two types one is harassment bribe and other one is non-harassment bribes. Harassment bribes are given by people to get what are legally entitled to. e.g. bribe given to in...

Whenever I hear Mahendra “M S” Dhoni coming to bat, I leave all business to watch smiting Dhoni playing his shots. It’s not only me who holds this view about one of the greatest finisher India has so far got. I remember watching a live interview of M S Dhoni on a news channel in 2004 before his debut in Indian ODI squad. He was being interviewed at JSCA International cricket complex, wearing a red t-shirt, his signature long locks drenched in sweat. Who could imagine a desi cricketer speaking in Hindi will soon become the most favorite sportsperson in the world. Soon after he joined Indian cricket team in 2004, he was offered the captaincy of the team in 2007 when Rahul Dravid, the then Indian cricket captain decided to give up the challenging role. Dhoni was quite young at that age, just 26 to shoulder the responsibility. But with his flamboyant personality and fearless attitude towards the game, he soon became trepidation for the oppositions.  His contribution to Indian cr...

What is meaning of technology and what role has it got to play when we talk in terms of cricket? Technology is something which is relatable to automation of modus operandi and reduces human intervention and thus saves time, the most limiting factor in today’s frenetic world. Yes, it involves the cost but we have to make a choice between time and cost and hence the quality. No doubt, in cricket also, the advent of technology has given ultra-edge benefits in the areas where umpires had to take manual decisions which could turn out to be good or bad. In the last few decades, the technology has progressed by leaps and bounds in the area of cricket as a sports. Needless to say, there was dire need to do it. In cricket, recently there have been technological advancements such as pitching of Hotspot, Snick-o-meter, Hawkeye, LED stumps and bails, stump camera to name a few. Hotspot is the technology used to review the smallest nick of ball and bat. In snick-o-meter, a sensitive micropho...

Had India and Pakistan not faced the impediment of division in 1947, the gathered Indian soil could have had more pace bowlers in its kitty. Indian cricket team, no doubt is and has been one of the best cricket team in the world and is a tough competitor. Indian soil has produced few greatest cricketers such as Dilip Sardesai, Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev (first Indian all-rounder), Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virat Kohli to name a few. However so far as the pace bowling is concerned, India has never been that fortunate as Cricket Australia and Pakistan cricket team who hold the best pace bowling attack of all times. In my view what matters most in game of cricket is consistency in performance. A cricketer can be called dependable and consistent when he plays his natural game of cricket in almost all the games he plays, against all the bowlers and in all the conditions whether favorable or not. One such batsman in Indian cricket has been...

The small island country of Jamaica located in Caribbean Sea has produced some of the all-time great sportsmen including the yester year’s cricketers George Headley, Michael Holding and Courtney Walsh. While Headley had been the greatest batsman of his times, the speedy piercing bowling of both Holding and Walsh had given nightmares to all the batsmen around the world at a time in history of cricket. Deadly combination of both batting and bowling skills was still awaiting to bless the Caribbean island till Jamaican land gave nativity to “Christopher Henry Gayle” in 1979 and Andre Dwayne Russell in 1988. Chris Gayle popularly by named as “Gayle storm” amongst his peers and the cricket fraternity is considered to be the best batsman in T20 cricket. Indian Premier League kick started in 2008 and Gayle was signed to join Kolkata Knight Riders in year 2009. Shortly after that he has been a part of Royal Challengers Banglore and is currently the part and parcel of KXIP since IPL s...

The Indian cricket festival, Indian Premier League has successfully entered into 12th season this year and in the first few days only we are witnessing many new records being already made, Rishabh Pant going hammer and tongs over Mumbai Indians in first 2019 IPL match playing for Delhi Capitals, Chris Gayle being back in form playing for KXIP, Chennai Super Kings continuing to sail the victorious boat and many more. IPL is not just a cricketing series to many. It is like a long festivity which keeps people engrossed for almost over a month and you will come across a lots of madness in the coming time. The tough competition between world class cricket players makes it more appealing and interesting to watch. However this season of IPL has witnessed something which has never happened before in its history. There has been much hullabaloo over Ravichandran Ashwin (Captain of KXIP) mankading Jos Buttler (hitman from Rajasthan Royals). Mankading is a term used in cricket named aft...