Sunday, August 30, 2009

There is something new in the air

“God gave me relatives..thank God, I also have friends!”

How many of us feel good about this statement? Most of us do! We may be close to our kith and kin but to all of us, it is a different feel to be with a good friend. Now, this could be your boy friend, girl friend or ‘just’ a dear friend! The solace and comfort one gets from a friend is probably unparalleled.

How many times have you consulted your friends in times of need? How many of you have confided with your friends on important decisions? How many times have you taken an opinion of your friend? How much do you owe your friend (sans money!)? And how many friends do you have! Many? Good. Few? Good! :) The point here is of just one – One good friend or as you may want to put it – the best friend!

We earlier spoke of friends sans money. Now let’s get the money piece in. How many of you have consulted your best friend on financial decisions? Or atleast informed them about it. How many have had a word of good from your best friend's experience in similar situations? Many.. heard that!

Why do we feel comfortable about it? Most times it comes with neutrality. We know our best friend is neutral to the situation, hence can give an honest opinion. We believe in the best friend. We feel it is an easy experience with the best friend than anyone else. Yes. These are the root causes of our solace and comfort. Belief and easy experience.

Imagine your best friend kicking off your worries and giving you the best advice in terms of money! Imagine if your best friend helps you in organizing your money and getting the best out of it! Think of it if your best friend helps you with the money you need with the loan-deal you want! Imagine your best friend getting you through with most of your money hassles.. all as an easy experience!

If experiences with money come with belief and ease enabled by your best friend, what more can life ask for! Just enjoy the experience and live life easy!

There is something new in the air… A pleasant breeze is on the forecast! Do stay tuned!

The Usefulness of Online Filing of IT Returns

Filing IT returns can more appropriately be called a duty than an annual custom. Come July – it is that time of the year, when salaried and non-salaried individuals get busy filing their IT returns and chartered accountants get busier enabling them to do so. Amidst all this, we owe a thought to one thing: we do most of our financial transactions ourselves; we are quite conservative on disclosing our financial details to anyone else; but we do not hesitate to engage with a Chartered Accountant (CA) to help us file our returns. We have etched in our black box that filing IT returns is a laborious task and at times can get confusing as well. More so, it is comfortable and secure to pay a small fee to a CA and get it done.

Studies reveal that most people who file IT returns change their CA every year. Then how are we breaking our customary conservatism to do it? Actually, we don’t know. We do it because we see people doing it! It’s simple! Or is it? Or have we not found a simpler way! The latter may actually be true. We feel we find in a CA – an exclusive confidant – who makes our lives easy! Is he exclusive to you? And is he actually a confidant?

Over the last decade, we have seen an outburst of activities that have gone online. Starting from the birthday cakes, bouquets and greeting cards to general needs and home appliances, the list of online engagements go unto buying houses and meeting life-partners online! Online commerce or e-commerce has made rapid strides. Managing most bank transactions online, keeping track of investment portfolio, demat accounts et al are now a few clicks away! And secure too. When transactions aplenty are happening online, it only becomes natural to extend and enable filing IT returns online.

Why should I? Well, reasons are just above and more so, when you have advantages like the ones that follow: You always wanted a personal and an exclusive engagement to file your taxes. Having an online account to file returns, confirms an exclusive and intuitive experience. As a tax-payer, it is your right and duty to understand your tax-structure. Online filing helps you understand your taxes while you file your returns. Well, you have complete control over your taxes; your deadline for filing returns the e-way is 11:59PM, July 31st while paper-returns need to be filed not later than 5PM. This means, you can file your returns any time of the day or night!

Filing returns online is approved by the Income Tax Department (ITD) which also recommends the initiative by giving an immediate online acknowledgement. As you fill the online form, any amount you still owe or due to you is calculated immediately and any pay-out to you by the ITD is done lot quicker than the same activity going through paper-way. You can monitor your ‘self-assessment account’ online that stores your entire payment history, statements, status of payments, returns, etc. For any reason, ff you still need it on paper, go ahead and print it!

Is it safe? Actually storing IT data offline on paper is more risky and vulnerable to theft and misuse! Online filing comes with Verisign-certification and uses a 128-bit encryption SSL module. In simple terns, online filing is completely secure and when filed through a digital signature, is 100% risk-proof. But I have not done it before! That’s the reason you should be doing it now! Online population for filing returns is steadily on the rise. Also a cause toward saving paper and the environment – create an account online and file your returns. It is easy, it is simple, it is secure, and it is unique! Happy e-filing!

What is recession - An Interesting Story!

What is recession? This Story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside. He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers. He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio.

His eyes were weak, so he never watched television. But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs. He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales. His sales and profit went up. He ordered more raw material and buns and began sale more. He recruited few more supporting staff to serve more customers. He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove.

As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from College, joined his father. Then something strange happened. The son asked, "Dad, aren't you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?" The father replied, "No, but tell me about it." The son said, "The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times."

The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV, he ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly. So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colourful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic. He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs. Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his hotdog stand. His sales started coming down rapidly, so did the profit. The father said to his son, "Son, you were right". "We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time."

Moral of The Story: It's all in your MIND! Spend! And let the money circulate!