Beginner

We are already into the last month of the financial year 2019-20, and it is that time of the year when everyone starts thinking about filing taxes. Income tax laws provide for certain tax benefits under different provisions, including Section 80C (tax-saving investments and payments), Section 80D (payment towards medical insurance premium), Section 80G (donations to eligible charitable funds and trusts) etc. of the Indian Income Tax Act. 

When one is investing in equity markets through mutual funds, one is exposed to two types of risks – systematic risk and unsystematic risk. While systematic risk denotes the risk of changes in the macroeconomic environment impacting the investment portfolio, unsystematic risk refers to the risk of choosing a wrong company to invest in, thus making a wrong investment decision.

Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) allows an investor to invest regularly in mutual funds on periodic intervals. As such, it enables investors to steer through the market movements effortlessly. Indian retail investors also prefer to invest in the markets through SIPs, as is evident from the monthly SIP inflows, which have sustained above Rs. 8,000 crores for more than a year now (Source: Association of Mutual Funds in India – AMFI, as on 31st December 2019).

Market indices such as S&P BSE Sensex, NSE Nifty50, etc. are created by adopting scientific methodologies and back-tested techniques. As such, the investors may wish to invest in such indices to have smooth investment experience. However, since such indices are not tradable security in themselves, it is a difficult proposition for the investors to construct a similar investment portfolio, which replicates such an index. Index funds may be suitable to meet such investing needs.

Equity Linked Saving Schemes (ELSS) is one of the available investment options under Section 80C and is steadily emerging as a preferred investment choice amongst the investors for tax saving. This is also reflected in the ELSS Category AUM (Assets Under Management) of Rs. 1.04 lakh crores as on 31st December 2019 amounting to around 4% of the overall industry AUM.

Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) allows the investors to invest in a mutual fund scheme of their choice at periodical intervals. It automates the investment process once the investor has completed the registration process, as the investments continue to be regularly made irrespective of market ups and downs.

Amidst the persisting market volatility, the monthly SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) inflows into mutual funds have sustained over Rs. 8,000 crores for 16 months. (Period- Dec 2018 – March 2020). Source: Association of Mutual Funds in India 

ELSS (Equity Linked Savings Scheme) has been one of the available investment options under Section 80C, which allows a tax benefit of investment up to Rs. 1.50 lakh in a financial year. Further, besides the tax benefit, the taxpayers can also invest in ELSS to club their financial goals and tax plans. 

Section 80C of the Income Tax Act provides various investment options to the taxpayers to be eligible for a tax benefit. While many taxpayers prefer tax-saving fixed deposit (FD) due to more natural investment process and guaranteed returns, ELSS (Equity Linked Savings Scheme) has been emerging as a preferred tax saving investment option off late.