Once your Section 80C is fully utilised at Rs 1.5 lakh — through PPF, ELSS, life insurance premiums, or home loan principal — most Indian salaried taxpayers stop tax planning. They shouldn’t. There are at least six additional deductions above 80C in FY 2025-26 that together can claim another Rs 2-3 lakh from your taxable…
HRA (House Rent Allowance) exemption is calculated as the LEAST of three values: actual HRA received, actual rent paid minus 10% of basic salary, or 40-50% of basic salary (depending on metro classification). The math is non-intuitive — most salaried Indians lose Rs 30,000 to Rs 1.2 lakh per year by not optimising their HRA…
An income tax notice in India arrives via email and the e-filing portal within 6-12 months of filing your ITR — and panicking is the most common (and worst) reaction. Most notices are routine: Section 143(1) intimation matches your ITR against IT Department data; Section 139(9) flags defective returns; Section 245 adjusts refunds against past…
Cryptocurrency and Virtual Digital Assets (VDAs) in India are taxed at a flat 30% (plus surcharge and 4% cess) on profits, with no setoff of losses and no indexation benefit. Every crypto sale triggers 1% TDS under Section 194S. Gifts of crypto over Rs 50,000 are taxable in the recipient’s hands. The rules apply regardless…
A salaried Indian buying a first home can stack three Income Tax Act sections to deduct up to Rs 5 lakh in a single year — Section 24 (interest up to Rs 2L on self-occupied property), Section 80C (principal repayment up to Rs 1.5L), and Section 80EE / 80EEA (additional Rs 50K and Rs 1.5L…
Section 80CCD(1B) gives every Indian an additional Rs 50,000 tax deduction over and above the Rs 1.5L Section 80C limit — for contributions to NPS Tier 1 only. At a 30% marginal tax rate, that’s Rs 15,600 in tax saved every year. Despite being one of the cleanest tax-saving tools in India, only ~6% of…
Form 16 is the consolidated TDS certificate your employer issues by 15 June every year, summarising your salary, tax deducted, and exemptions claimed for the financial year. It has two parts — Part A (TDS summary verified against TRACES) and Part B (salary breakdown with deductions). The five things every salaried Indian must verify on…
Last verified May 2026. An Indian forex card or prepaid travel card avoids the 3-3.5% forex markup that regular credit cards add on international transactions. The right pick depends on your travel style: frequent and unpredictable trips favour Niyo Global (zero markup, no fees); multi-currency planned trips favour HDFC’s 22-currency card; ICICI banking customers should…
Most Indian premium credit cards advertise “free travel insurance” worth ₹50 lakhs or more. The marketing oversells what’s actually covered — the typical real coverage is air-accident insurance (one-time payout if you die in a plane crash on a flight you booked with the card), lost-checked-baggage compensation of ₹10,000-50,000, and limited trip-delay reimbursement. Medical evacuation,…
RBI’s credit card rulebook has had four meaningful updates between 2022 and 2026 — card-on-file tokenisation, billing-date freedom, OTP for international transactions, and stricter card-closure timelines. Each one changes how you should manage your cards. This guide walks through what’s now mandatory, what’s banned, what your bank can and can’t do under current rules, and…
An add-on credit card (also called supplementary or secondary card) is a card issued on the same account as your primary card, sharing the same credit limit but printed in a family member’s name. They’re cheaper than getting a separate card, build credit history for the holder, and unlock airport lounge access for spouses on…
A rejected credit card application is fixable, but the right next move depends on the rejection reason. The top causes in India in 2026 are low CIBIL score (