Wednesday, 3 July 2013

PPF - Public Provident Fund

Returns Interest 8.6% p.a. (compounded annually), w.e.f. 01-Dec-2011, is credited to the PPF account at the end of each financial year.
Investment Limitation Min Amount :Rs. 500/- and additional investment in multiples of Rs 5/- Max Amount Rs. 1,00,000/-  
Scheme Availability A PPF account can be opened at anytime during the year. It is open all through the year.  
Mode of Operation
    * Single
    * Joint (Two or more)
    * Minor with parent/guardian An individual cannot invest on behalf of HUF (Hindu Undivided Family) or Association of persons.  
Nomination Timing Nomination can be done at the time of opening the account or during the tenor of the account.  
Tenure of Investment 15 years from the date of initial investment with a block of 5 years there-after upto a max of 30 years incl. 15 years.  
Maturity The PPF account matures after 15 years. One can then exercise on option of continuing the account for an additional block of 5 years or close it.  
Loans The first loan can be taken in the 3rd financial year from the date of opening of the account, or upto 25% of the amount at credit at the end of the first financial year. The facility can be availed of any before expiry of 5 years from the end of the year in which the initial subscription was made. The loan is repayable either in lumpsum or in convenient installments numbering not more than 36. The rate of interest charged on loan taken by the subscriber of a PPF account on or after 01.12.2011 shall be 2% p.a. However, the rate of interest of 1% p.a. shall continue to be charged on the loans already taken or taken up to 30.11.2011.  
Withdrawal A withdrawal is permissible every year from the 7th financial year of the date of opening of the account, of an amount not exceeding 50% of the balance at the end of the 4th proceeding year or the year immediately proceeding the year of the withdrawal, whichever is lower, less the amount of loan if any.  
Tax Benefits Tax benefits can be availed under sections 88 for the amount invested. Interest accrued is Tax free.  
Tips for Investing
       * Apart from a Post Office, a PPF account can also be opened in SBI & its associates and other select nationalized banks. Now you can open a PPF account in ICICI bank (a private sector bank).
       * The most popular tax saving instrument which gives a rebate under section 88.
       * A PPF account cannot be attached by the Govt. or any court of law or through any decree.  
Terms Who can open a PPF account ? A PPF account can be opened by an individual on his own behalf or on behalf of a minor of whom he is the guardian or on behalf of an association of persons or a body of individuals. An individual can open only one account for himself.  
Transfer The account can be transferred at the request of the subscriber from one office to another, including from Bank to Post Office and vice- versa all over the country.  
Nomination A subscriber may nominate one or more persons to receive the amount standing to his credit in the event of his death. No nomination can, however, be made in respect of an account opened on behalf of a minor. In the event of the death of the subscriber, the amount standing to his credit can be repaid to his nominee or legal heir, as the case may be, even before the expiry of fifteen years. Legal hairs can claim the amount upto Rupees One Lakh without production of succession certificate after observing certain formalities.
 Payment Default If the PPF account-holder fails to deposit the minimum Rs 500 in a given financial year, the account is considered as discontinued but the interest will continue to accrue and be paid at the end of the term. Loans and withdrawals are not allowed. This account can be revived on payment of a fee of Rs 50 for each year of default, along with the arrears of subscription of Rs 500 for each such year  
Termination of an Account No PPF account can be terminated before its completion. However, if requests for premature closure of PPF accounts and refund of deposits from the subscribers are genuine in nature, such cases can be dealt with under Rule 13 of the scheme. Since no withdrawal is permissible before the expiry of four years from the end of the year in which the account was opened vide para 9 (withdrawal) of the scheme, the request for termination or closure of accounts can be considered only after the expiry of the said period. For example, the request for premature closure of accounts opened in 1988-89 can be considered only after 1.4.1994. Such requests may, therefore, be forwarded to the Ministry of Finance alongwith the following information - * Name and address of the account holder * Account number * Date on which the account was opened * Loans availed of if any from the account with dates and position regarding repayment * Satisfactory reasons given for the request and evidence in support thereof * Designation and address of the income tax authority under whose jurisdiction the subscriber falls * Any other information relevant to the request.  
Free from any Attachment A PPF account is free from any attachment under any order or decree of a court in respect of any debt or other liability incurred by him  
PPF for NRIs Non Resident Indians may also open a PPF account out of the funds in the applicant's non-resident account in India in banks subject to the following conditions - * The account is marked as non-resident account * All credits therein or debits thereto are made subject to the same regulations as are applicable to non-resident account.

Coutesy: The Economics Times

Reasons for delay in getting tax refunds

Delay in tax refunds is a malady more widespread than the common cold. For many taxpayers, it is an endless wait for the government to return the excess tax that has been deducted. Nearly 57% of the respondents in our survey said they had faced this problem. The excess tax is like an interest-free loan to the government because you are entitled to the interest only after you file your return. “The government pays only 6% interest but charges 12% for late payment. With proper tax planning, a taxpayer should not have any refund at all,” says Sudhir Kaushik, co-founder and CFO of Taxspanner.com. Almost 15% of Taxspanner customers got tax refunds last year. It’s easy to accuse tax officials, but in many cases, the delay in refunds is due to discrepancies in the tax forms. Taxspanner scrutinized the returns of its customers and identified the most common reasons for the refund delay. Make sure you don’t commit these errors.
 1) Mismatch in TDS data If the TDS details in your form do not match the data with the Income Tax Department, expect your refund to be put on the backburner. Verify the TDS details online before submitting the form.
 2) Wrong address Though direct credit of refunds has removed this problem to a large extent, there are still some taxpayers who give wrong addresses and then wait for refunds.
 3) Missing bank account details You are supposed to give your bank account number and its MICR code for direct credit of refunds. If there is an error, your refund gets stuck.
 4) Late submission of ITR V The return is not filed until the ITR V reaches the CPC in Bangalore. Don’t expect any refund if the ITR V has not been filed.
 5) Large number of TDS entries If there are lots of TDS entries (some taxpayers can have up to 70-80 entries), your assessment may take a little longer. Obviously, the refund also gets delayed.

Courtesy: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/

MICR code in a cheque

All of us have heard about the MICR code – it is present on all our cheque leaves. The MICR code is also essential for online money transfers. But what does MICR stand for? What is its full form? How is it useful? Let’s find out. Full form of MICR MICR is an abbreviation for “Magnetic Ink Character Recognition”. MICR on your cheques The MICR code is a 9 digit code, which is printed at the bottom of a cheque. Here’s how it looks:
Composition of the MICR code A MICR code is unique to each bank branch. Thus, a MICR code can be used to uniquely identify any bank branch. It comprises of 3 parts:
  • The first three digits represent the city (City Code). They are aligned with the PIN code we use for postal addresses in India.
  • The next 3 digits represent the bank (Bank Code)
  • The last 3 digits represent the branch (Branch Code)
Example 1 Let’s say you have an account in the Andheri (West), Mumbai branch of State Bank of India (SBI). What would be its MICR code?
  • City code for Mumbai: 400
  • Bank code for SBI: 002
  • Branch code for Andheri (West): 003
  • Thus, the MICR code is: 400002003
Example 2 Say you have an account in the Indira Nager, Bangalore branch of ICICI Bank.
  • City code for Bangalore: 560
  • Bank code for ICICI Bank: 229
  • Branch code for Indira Nagar: 013
Thus, the MICR code is: 560229013 If you have the MICR code, you can find out the bank name, branch and city by just reversing the process! How a MICR code makes cheque processing faster As we saw, MICR stands for “Magnetic Ink Character Recognition”. Thus, it is actually the name of the technology using which the code is printed. And therefore, the code is known as MICR code. So, how does this MICR technology work, and how does it help? On the cheque, the MICR code is printed using a special kind of ink or toner – an ink that contains magnetic material (usually iron oxide). The code is also printed using a specific font. This ink is machine-readable due to the presence of the magnetic material (just like the strip at the back of a credit or debit card). When the cheque is inserted in a reading machine or a cheque sorting machine, it can read the MICR code even if there are other marks or stamps on it. Thus, the machine can easily find out which branch the cheque belongs to. This helps a lot in automating the cheque clearing process. And since this is automated, there is little possibility of any error! Bottomline: Cheques get cleared faster, and you get your funds earlier!  
List of MICR Codes of all bank branches in India Want to know the MICR code of a particular bank branch? Download the spreadsheet containing the MICR codes of ALL bank branches in India. (Note: The file may take some time to download – it is 3.75MB in size) http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/content/docs/67440.xls

Courtesy: http://www.raagvamdatt.com

Tuesday, 2 July 2013

Bits to Bytes

In the computing world we generally use bytes to indicate Disk Space or data storage capacity as well as memory. These are widely used for memory capacity of USB drive, Hard Disk or RAM of the computer system.

Virtual StorageDisk Capacity
4 Bits = 1 Nibble4 Bits = 1 Nibble
8 Bits = 1 Byte8 Bits = 1 Byte
1024 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte1000 Bytes = 1 Kilobyte
1024 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte1000 Kilobytes = 1 Megabyte
1024 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte1000 Gigabytes = 1 Terabyte
1024 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte1000 Terabytes = 1 Petabyte
1024 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte1000 Petabytes = 1 Exabyte
1024 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte1000 Exabytes = 1 Zettabyte
1024 Zettabytes = 1 Yottabyte1000 Zettabytes = 1 Yottabyte
1024 Yottabytes = 1 Brontobyte1000 Yottabytes = 1 Brontobyte
1024 Brontobytes = 1 Geopbyte1000 Brontobytes = 1 Geopbyte