#fixed up with taxpayer money going to pay rent

[mistprints]

I was watching the news about how LA banned homeless encampments near schools, as well as how Nevada was demolishing tiny homes made for the homeless based on a technicality about square footage allowed..and like. People demonize the homeless and try to make other people see them as immoral and criminal. While the US needs to handle its homeless problem like every other developed nation, with housing and the opportunity to get employed again once back on their feet, demonizing them under the pretense of "think of the poor children" is not going to help anyone. "But why do they deserve to get free help? We are all struggling and it's their own fault they're homeless." So many homeless were veterans and people that had one bad month or one bad disaster that any one of us could have gone through. And to say they aren't deserving of help when we DO have the capacity to do so....well, we are constantly lied to that it would cost too much and that the everyday taxpayer would suffer. It costs us more in taxes when the city builds hostile architecture, and when these people get very sick from being outside and are taken to emergency rooms. We fund and throw money into programs that don't do anything to help people *out* of homelessness, just temporarily slap a bandaid on it. And while that isn't nothing, it is not what the end goal should be. It is a lie that people end up homeless only due to laziness. It's a lie that the majority of homeless people are homeless from laziness. In America, it is so damn expensive to live, that 70% of Americans are one disaster away from living on the streets. Some of these people had to choose between their house and live-saving medical treatment. The way we treat them is disgusting, like untouchables and we pretend they aren't there except when it comes to putting them out of sight. I've known people who were working 9 to 5 jobs while living out of homeless shelters still. The wages weren't enough to get them any sort of rent. The median rent right now is $2,000 here. $15 minimum wage isn't going to cut it. We are being conned and lied to about not getting more pay than that. This is a capitalist hellscape, hostile to working-class (everyone who is not the 1%) human life. It shouldn't and does not have to be like this. Higher taxes for free healthcare would cost less than a monthly premium we would no longer have to pay, but we don't talk about that. We keep getting gaslit by politicians whose motives are not in our best interest. They are bought out [read: bribed] to keep the status quo and make the rich richer while ignoring our crumbling infrastructure, a predatory housing crisis, flagging wages, environmental crisis for the future of humanity, and healthcare. We fail at everything except profits, which get directly funneled to this vague "rich" class and hoarded. And more people will become homeless while the rest have a worse and worse quality of life. This is not sustainable. There are several things that could be done to fix these issues in a decade at most; I could narrow it down to 5 broad ones:

Raising the minimum wage -honestly one of the most effective ways to give the working class more spending money. Wages have not grown with the rest of the economy in decades. We work harder for less.

Capping Rent universally -can be adjusted for the cost of living in each city, but cannot exceed 30% of the minimum paycheck. ideally for at least 3 years. We also should not allow companies to buy up homes for sale in mass so they can rent them out eternally.

Universal Healthcare -take out the insurance company middle man. it is cheaper for everyone even for those that don't have health insurance (because we pay with higher taxes for high-risk people such as the homeless when they are taken in for dire situations.)

Education Reform -The American school system is deeply flawed. The curriculum has not been updated since the 60s. We fall far behind much of the world. This would include language classes and equitable funding for all departments. Ideally, this would include daycare too.

Environmental Action -Probably the hardest one to tackle and with a time crunch. This goes hand in hand with infrastructure reform; the energy grid wastes a ton of power because of how old and crumbling it is. Water infrastructure is also in danger with the recent droughts part of the country is seeing and the floods in the other. Reducing carbon emissions, using the other better and available energy options...I could make a whole post about this alone because it is what I majored in, but requires a lot more than just switching the lights we use and saving energy. This is bigger than just a consumer-level problem, and the biggest polluters are a handful of companies that ruin the environment, reap the benefits and keep them, then put the environmental costs on all of us. They need to be strictly regulated and required to change wasteful and environmentally harmful practices; and not just with carbon offsets.

our issues are way more complicated and numerous, and I do have more ideas on smaller issues too. But I think handling these would significantly impact the others to raise the quality of life here. We have to divert from the path we are charging down, because not all Americans are the bigoted and ignorant people shown all over the news. A majority of us want the best for each other and to live our lives rather than just survive until we die. Many don't know what to do to begin to change things and can't afford to even leave while a handful of men in powerful offices toy with people's lives all over the world just because they can and have the guns to force the rest of us into thinking we are powerless against them. They keep us divided and uninformed and we often get to choose between a bad and horrible choice for who ends up in charge.

If anyone reads this and wonders what they can do, the biggest impact an individual can do is vote. Vote in people that will make these things happen and who aren't being paid on the side to work for corporate and stock and pharmaceutical and defense industry interests. Vote in your primaries so that when the big decision finally comes, we aren't left with the worst options. Don't let them scare you and don't let them destroy the shreds of democracy we have left.

#homelessness #america #politics #us politics #solarpunk #the machine is dystopian #healthcare is a human right #people before profits #intro to leftism #bernie sanders 2024 #usa #america news #please vote #don't let anyone tell you otherwise #important #government #corporate greed #late stage capitalism

[leviathangourmet]

You hear it all the time. Teachers are underpaid. There is a teacher pay penalty. Teachers are the lowest paid of all the professions. Recently, the National Education Association issued a report claiming, “Teacher Salaries Not Keeping Up With Inflation.” The Guardian asserts that teachers “can’t afford rent.”

The feds may soon be joining the party. America’s shrill socialist Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, has introduced the Pay Teachers Act, a gambit that would cost taxpayers $450 billion over 10 years. If passed, Title I funding would be tripled by “increasing estate taxes on the wealthiest Americans.” Under this money grab, states would be eligible, with federal help, to raise teacher salaries to $60,000 a year.

On a local level, New York City educators are getting a big pay hike and bonuses of up to 20% under a five-year, $6.4 billion labor contract announced in June by Mayor Eric Adams and the United Federation of Teachers. Under the new deal, the top salaries for the longest-serving teachers will exceed $150,000.

Not to be outdone, California is seeking to boost teacher salaries by 50% by 2030. Al Muratsuchi (D-Los Angeles), the author of AB 938, maintains that many teachers and school employees are “unable to afford to live in the communities they work in. Moreover, there is a growing wage gap between teachers and comparable college graduates in other fields.”

And now for a much-needed reality check. In the 2020–21 school year, the average U.S. school teacher made $65,090 yearly in salary and received another $33,048 in benefits (health insurance, paid leave, and pensions) for a total compensation of $98,138, according to Just Facts.

Also, full-time public school teachers work an average of 1,490 hours per year, including time spent on lesson preparation, test construction, and grading, providing extra help to students, coaching, and other activities, while private industry employees work an average of 2,045 hours per year, or about 37% more than public school teachers.

All in all, with various weighty perks like healthcare and pension plans included, a teacher makes $68.85 an hour on average, whereas a private sector worker makes about $36 per hour.

There are, however, several ways for teachers to earn more without whacking the already beleaguered taxpayer. Notably, pensions for teachers should be revamped.

Teachers and other education workers typically participate in defined benefit 403(b) pension plans. In this arrangement, while pensions are funded to some extent by the workers themselves, the bulk of the payment is supplied by the school district – therefore the taxpayer – and the local and state government – i.e., the taxpayer. The teacher, upon retiring, receives a fixed monthly amount for life, no matter how much he or she has actually contributed to the plan.

But as Cory Koedel, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Missouri, explains, this hurts teachers too. Focusing on California, he writes that “labor costs for districts are going up rapidly due to pension and health-benefit costs. Because these benefit cost increases do not correspond to rising benefits for current teachers—they reflect legacy costs—they are creating a larger and larger wedge between what teachers today take home in terms of wages and benefits, and school districts’ personnel costs.”

Koedel goes on to say that there would be more resources available for salary increases for teachers if benefit costs were lower.

Another way for teachers to be paid more without a tax hike would be to reduce the number of administrators. Rick Hess, a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, writes that if the ranks of 400,000 school and district administrators were trimmed by 20 percent, it would “put the administrative body count back where it was during the Obama presidency, with administrative ranks still 25 percent larger than in 2000. Use the savings to fund 12-month lead teacher positions for one in six teachers, with salary and leave bumped accordingly. Teachers could grow professionally and assume a larger role in training, curriculum development or parent engagement without having to leave the classroom.”

Hess asserts that such an action would result in an average teacher salary of $84,000.

Additionally, teacher pay would rise if class size was increased. Fewer teachers translate to more money for those who still teach. Nationally, class size has been shrinking over time. Since 1921, the student-to-teacher ratio has been reduced from 33:1 to 16:1. An extensive analysis of the subject was done by Hoover Institution senior fellow and economist Eric Hanushek in 1998. He examined 277 different studies on the effect of teacher-pupil ratios and class-size averages on student achievement and found that 15% of the studies did show an improvement in achievement, while 72% found no effect at all, and 13% found that reducing class size had a negative effect on achievement.

Yet another way to raise (some) teachers’ salaries is through differentiated pay. Paying some teachers higher salaries because they are more effective or raising salaries for teachers who are willing to work at tougher-to-staff schools should be options.

Also, teachers’ salaries increase where school choice has been implemented. Out of six studies on the subject going back to 1994, one finds an ambiguous effect, while the remaining five find a small positive effect. Even for teachers who remain in the traditional public school system, school choice increases compensation.

But school choice, differentiated pay, and all the other potential fixes are for the teachers unions what the crucifix was to Dracula.

Regarding differentiated pay, the California Teachers Association has codified its opposition to it in its policy handbook. The union insists on a “single salary schedule” that pays all teachers at all schools the same wages based on their experience and education levels. “The model is widely accepted because it is seen as less arbitrary, clearer and more predictable,” the handbook states. “Because of these factors, the single salary schedule will continue to be the foundation of educators’ pay.”

To sum up, anything that would actually turn teachers into independent professionals is ixnay for the teachers unions, which insist on treating educators as dues-paying widgets. Until we eliminate or severely curtail the power of those unions, any meaningful change will be very hard to come by.

#education #teachers unions #public education #article

[wizelywizeup]

5 Ways to Save Income Tax In 2021

Paying taxes is a legal and moral responsibility for every citizen.

People are always on the lookout to save income tax. No one likes to miss out on ways that can save them money paid as tax, and sometimes, they just stick to the methods they have been applying and, as a result, resulting in missing more productive ways of saving tax. With suitable investments, you can save much more on income tax.

Here are five ways to save your income tax in 2021:

Invest in Education - This comes under section 80E of the Income Tax Act. The interest amount paid against an education loan is not taxable. Premiums are liable to tax benefits over and above the claims of ₹1.5 lacs, and there is no maximum limit under Section 80E under which it can be filed. Individual taxpayers can apply for this benefit, but it is not open to Hindu Undivided Families. Like ULIPs or traditional savings plans, most child plans fall under conventional life insurance policies, thereby offering similar tax benefits. Young parents might feel the pressure of school fees and planning the future of their children.

Avail a Home Loan- It is a dream for most people to buy their own homes. Nowadays, most people in the cities today live in rented accommodation while saving up money to buy their dream homes someday. You can save tax if you plan your home loan wisely following section 80C. Banks and NBFCs offer attractive home loans to uplift the real estate market; thus, benefitting you with a good deal on loan. Do mark that the Budget of 2021-2022 has kept the taxation system for home loans precise. So you can continue to get rebates under Sec 80C for the principal amount borrowed for the home payment, with deductions on interest paid under Sec 24.

Use Market- Linked Instruments - It is time to move away from those traditional fixed savings schemes like bank FDs or RDs, whose income is taxed. Despite the stock market’s wavy trends, it helps one invest in market-linked instruments aligned with your financial goals. Equity-Linked Saving Schemes, National Pension Scheme, and Mutual Funds, and ULIPs are all examples of market-linked instruments. ELSS, NPS, ULIPs, and certain MFs exempt from taxation under Section 80C of the IT Act of 1961. For ELSS and ULIPs, if you go for premiums below ₹1.5 lakhs, no income tax is added with a lock-in period of 3 years. You can read more about Mutual Funds here: A Beginner's Guide to Investing In Mutual Funds

Invest in a Life Insurance Policy - The best way to secure your and your loved ones is to buy a life insurance plan. Premiums done towards your life insurance will not be taxed if it is under ₹1.5 lakhs. Section 10D of the ITA allows any payouts received under a life insurance policy exempt from tax. If you were planning to buy term insurance, the time to do so is now.

Save for Retirement - It’s never too soon to plan for your retirement, especially after knowing how pandemic the previous year went. This is an excellent year to plan and buy a suitable pension plan, which offers premium deductions under Sec 80C. But double-check if the payouts against annuity plans or received as lump-sum amounts may be partially or fully taxed. You can save paying any tax on the money invested in ULIPs, given the premiums do not cross ₹1.5 lakhs. Save for your retirement on Wizely app and earn rewards for achieving your financial targets.

In conclusion, if you plan to reduce your tax with smart investing in 2021, keep a note of some important dates or talk to your investment advisor to help you choose the suitable instruments to save tax as per your income slab and future goals.

(Check out 'Learn & Grow with Wizely' to learn more about tax planning and investments.)

[bubblebit2]

Financial Administration Sources & Process Automation

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#會計師事務所

[scotteastwood-archive]

the brf needs to put out a proper statement for the eugenie and jack have now moved into Frogmore story because there's just so many unanswered questions. once again the brf's incompetancy is shown lmao

#british royal family #princess eugenie #frogmore cottage #like are the 2 non working royals living on crown estate #fixed up with taxpayer money going to pay rent #and how is it going to remain the sussex home when another couple has moved in #its things like these that need a proper statement #and not a 2 line email to the rota #sofia.txt

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Paygo, false consciousness and the IRS

John Steinbeck diagnosed an important American pathology in 1966 when he called the US a nation of “temporarily embarrassed capitalists” — people who see themselves as the wealthy-in-waiting and therefore fight policies that reduce the power that comes from wealth.

It’s a restatement of Engels’ idea of “false consciousness,” and it’s the result of a deliberate strategy on the part of wealthy people — many of whom believe that they were literally genetically destined to be wealthy — to convince the rest of us that “anyone can succeed.”

Part of the false consciousness program is the money story that goes like this: the US government takes away “taxpayers’ money” from “makers” to fund “programs,” the bulk of which go to the “lazy takers,” who experience the “moral hazard” of subsidized unemployment.

But of course, that’s not how money works. Money originates with the federal government (and its fiscal agents, the banks). In order for the public to have money to pay off its tax liabilities, the government must first spend that money into existence.

The IRS doesn’t take our tax dollars, pile them up, and give them to Congress to spend on programs. When the IRS taxes our money, they annihilate it, removing it from circulation. When Congress spends, new money comes into existence.

The US government can’t run out of money any more than Apple can run out of Itunes gift cards. It can spend too much money��— so much that prices go up because too many dollars are chasing too few goods — but it can’t run out of money.

Fed spending is constrained by resources (what’s for sale in dollars) not money (how many dollars there are). If the ratio of dollars to resources gets out of whack, there’s a risk of inflation.

There are many ways to fix this ratio. For example, the government usually issues T-bills (savings bonds) whenever it spends more than it taxes. When you buy a T-bill, you take dollars that might circulate around the economy, chasing goods and labor, and you sequester them.

A T-bill is just a dollar you’re not allowed to spend. In exchange for surrendering the right to spend your dollars for 1, 5, 10 or more years, the government offers you interest, trickling out that money over a long period.

That way the government can buy things today without bidding against your dollars.

But that’s not the only way to fight inflation while spending new money into existence. The other major way is taxation: simply removing money from the economy and annihilating it.

Taxation fights inflation. When the government runs a deficit, that means that it created more money this year via spending than it destroyed via taxes. The “government deficit” is the “public surplus” — the money left in the economy for all of us to spend on stuff.

Likewise, when the government runs a “surplus” that means it taxes more money out of existence than it spends into existence. In a year where the government runs a surplus, it means that the power of the private sector — you and me — to buy stuff has decreased overall.

This is fine if there was too much money to begin with — if inflation was kicking off — but if there’s not enough money in circulation (e.g. if there’s a recession), it just makes things worse…but not for everyone.

When the economy is starved of money, banks go to work creating new money through loans. These loans pay interest (to rich people like bank shareholders and people who securitize and buy debt).

That’s the one-two punch of spending cuts during a downturn:

I. The real economy is starved of the capital it needs to pay workers and make things for workers to buy;

II. The financial economy grows as desperate real-economy firms borrow from banks to keep the lights on.

Despite all their talk of “spending taxpayers’ money,” the wealthy understand how money works. That’s why they were totally indifferent to the running $1t/year deficits created by the Trump tax-cuts (and likewise about the Obama finance bailouts).

Giving money to rich people causes asset-bubbles (driving up the prices of houses), but not inflation (a sustained rise in the price of all goods). That’s because rich people can’t buy enough stuff (fridges, cars, oranges) to drive up prices.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#payfors

After you’ve bought three houses and three SubZero fridges and filled them with the beef of three Kobe cows and three cases of Moet, there’s still a LOT left over (even if you’re Jeff Bezos and buy a superyacht with its own, smaller superyacht).

Those leftovers go to socially useless things, like buying houses to turn into rent-generating slums (Wall Street is fast becoming America’s biggest landlord, and single family homes are sold for cash to investment funds instead of families).

And they go to influence campaigns designed to make regular people defend massive cuts to the IRS and opposition to public spending on infrastructure, education, health, and other necessities.

This isn’t just about Republicans. For years, the Democratic leadership has supported “balanced budgets” (spending so little that no new money is left in the economy after all taxes are paid).

The “paygo” rule (which requires all new spending to be matched with cuts or tax-hikes) is religion for the likes of Pelosi and Schumer. That’s why the Democratic caucus is mired in stupid arguments about “how we will pay for the stimulus.”

As bad as the paygo rule is, though, Republicans have made it worse, by demonizing and starving the IRS. Paygo means that the US government operates under the artificial constraint of only spending if it can make cuts or raise taxes.

Raises taxes is really unpopular, for obvious reasons.

Now, raising taxes on the 1% — who have a lot of excess money that’s fueling political corruption and asset bubbles — is one way around this.

Theoretically, taxing the 1% should have a 99% approval rating.

But canny Republicans have figured out how exorcise temporarily embarrassed capitalists about the “unfairness” of taxing their bosses, in part by just flat-out lying about who new taxes would implicate.

But there’s yet another way to satisfy paygo’s artificial constraint, without changing the a single word in the tax-code: simply fund the IRS so that it can collect the trillions that the ultra-wealthy illegally avoid in tax-payments every year.

But this strategy is also a bust. The GOP campaign to destroy the IRS has been too successful.

It’s a longrunning campaign, but it achieved liftoff in 2013 when the Tea Party baselessly accused the IRS of discriminating against conservative groups seeking nonprofit status.

The work-the-ref strategy paid off, providing political cover for deep cuts to the IRS and putting IRS staffers on notice so they green lit every dark money group that applied for nonprofit status, no matter how obviously corrupt they were.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/fallout-from-allegations-of-tea-party-targeting-hamper-irs-oversight-of-nonprofits/2017/12/17/6403c1c0-c59e-11e7-a441-3a768c8586f1_story.html

After the cuts, the IRS grew easier to discredit. Understaffed and under siege, the agency’s behavior grew erratic, then indefensible. There were runaway automated processes that sent out erroneous property-seizure notices that no one could rescind:

https://theintercept.com/2019/01/14/irs-shutdown-federal-government-shut-down-irs-asset-seizures/

Then there was the aftermath of the Equifax breach, where the IRS first told Americans that it didn’t matter because they’d already been doxed by other bad companies:

https://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/355862-irs-significant-number-of-equifax-victims-already-had-info-accessed-by

Then came news that the IRS couldn’t cancel Equifax’s no-bid, $7.5m anti-fraud contract because it didn’t have the resources to do its own fraud prevention (Equifax eventually lost the contract because it served malware from its anti-fraud site).

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/equifax-irs-data-breach-malware-discovered/

The rich waged a successful all-out war on the IRS. Take the Global High Wealth unit. For every hour an auditor from GHW worked, they brought in $4500 in taxes the super-rich had dodged. Even by the topsy-turvy logic of “government as a business,” this was good business.

After a concerted harassment and political influence campaign, the GHW abandoned the super-rich and switched to the merely wealthy, bringing in less money and pissing off a lot more people.

The other shoe dropped in 2019, when the IRS admitted it had switched to preferentially auditing poor people because it was too politically and legally fraught to audit rich people, even the most flagrant cheaters.

https://www.propublica.org/article/irs-sorry-but-its-just-easier-and-cheaper-to-audit-the-poor

That was the first year that America’s 400 highest earners paid a lower tax rate than the average American worker:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/06/opinion/income-tax-rate-wealthy.html

The IRS’s transformation into a facilitator of illegal wealth retention by the super-rich and petty harassment of the rest of Americans made them very easy to hate.

To that, add the concerted corporate campaigns to use the IRS to rip off workers.

For example, for 20 years, Intuit lobbied the IRS not to make tax-filing automatic, painless and free, ensuring that Americans would continue to pay billions to send data to the IRS that it already had:

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-turbotax-20-year-fight-to-stop-americans-from-filing-their-taxes-for-free

Reading the IRS’s internal emails from this battle reveals an agency in retreat, where demoralized and ineffectual government employees simply rolled over for one of the greatest ripoffs in American history:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-tried-to-hide-emails-that-show-tax-industry-influence-over-free-file-program

Intuit wanted to rip us off with taxes. Microsoft, by contrast, just wanted to break the law. Working with KPMG, the convicted monopolist created a “transfer” scheme of breathtaking illegality, using its tax-savings to bankroll its war on the IRS:

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher

Which brings us to today, where Democrats are held hostage to the “payfor” rule and trying to figure out how to mobilize the trillions Biden has pledged for infrastructure, health, and care.

Republicans — pushing the big lie of “taxpayer money” — are dogwhistling hard. Senator John Thune, responding to Biden’s proposal for $80b for the IRS, says any tax enforcement efforts “must strike an appropriate balance between taxpayer responsibilities and taxpayer rights.”

Meanwhile Senator Chuck Grassley takes the nonsensical position that funding the IRS won’t help it do its job (“simply throwing money at a problem doesn’t necessarily yield a solution”).

https://thehill.com/policy/finance/553704-lawmakers-bicker-over-how-to-go-after-tax-cheats

Then there’s Rep Kevin Brady, warning that a fully funded IRS would “unleash tens of thousands of new IRS agents on families, farms and businesses.”

But the Democrats own the paygo rule, not the Republicans, and their leadership have added their own special touch to make funding the IRS impossible.

https://prospect.org/politics/infrastructure-at-a-crossroads-biden-public-investment/

According to the rules Congress gives to the Congressional Budget Office (which calculates the cost of government programs), the CBO isn’t allowed to factor in the projected additional revenue from funding the IRS, only the cost of doing so (!).

Which means that they must factor in the salaries that IRS Global High Wealth auditors will draw — but they are forbidden from counting the $4500/hour they generate when they puncture the tissue-thin financial lies of the super-rich.

The payfor and “taxpayer money” are lies.

It’s a shuck sold to the rubes, not economics. Because it’s a shuck, it doesn’t have to make any sense — and it doesn’t. We shouldn’t run government like a business, but if we must, let’s at least count revenues as well as costs.

Image: Mike Licht/notionscapital.com https://www.flickr.com/photos/notionscapital/48857033957/

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic

[wizelywizeup]

5 Ways to Save Income Tax In 2022

Paying taxes is a legal and moral responsibility for every citizen.

People are always on the lookout to save income tax. No one likes to miss out on ways that can save them money paid as tax, and sometimes, they just stick to the methods they have been applying and, as a result, resulting in missing more productive ways of saving tax. With suitable investments, you can save much more on income tax.

Here are five ways to save your income tax in 2021:

Invest in Education - This comes under section 80E of the Income Tax Act. The interest amount paid against an education loan is not taxable. Premiums are liable to tax benefits over and above the claims of ₹1.5 lacs, and there is no maximum limit under Section 80E under which it can be filed. Individual taxpayers can apply for this benefit, but it is not open to Hindu Undivided Families. Like ULIPs or traditional savings plans, most child plans fall under conventional life insurance policies, thereby offering similar tax benefits. Young parents might feel the pressure of school fees and planning the future of their children.

Avail a Home Loan- It is a dream for most people to buy their own homes. Nowadays, most people in the cities today live in rented accommodation while saving up money to buy their dream homes someday. You can save tax if you plan your home loan wisely following section 80C. Banks and NBFCs offer attractive home loans to uplift the real estate market; thus, benefitting you with a good deal on loan. Do mark that the Budget of 2021-2022 has kept the taxation system for home loans precise. So you can continue to get rebates under Sec 80C for the principal amount borrowed for the home payment, with deductions on interest paid under Sec 24.

Use Market- Linked Instruments - It is time to move away from those traditional fixed savings schemes like bank FDs or RDs, whose income is taxed. Despite the stock market’s wavy trends, it helps one invest in market-linked instruments aligned with your financial goals. Equity-Linked Saving Schemes, National Pension Scheme, and Mutual Funds, and ULIPs are all examples of market-linked instruments. ELSS, NPS, ULIPs, and certain MFs exempt from taxation under Section 80C of the IT Act of 1961. For ELSS and ULIPs, if you go for premiums below ₹1.5 lakhs, no income tax is added with a lock-in period of 3 years. You can read more about Mutual Funds here: A Beginner's Guide to Investing In Mutual Funds

Invest in a Life Insurance Policy - The best way to secure your and your loved ones is to buy a life insurance plan. Premiums done towards your life insurance will not be taxed if it is under ₹1.5 lakhs. Section 10D of the ITA allows any payouts received under a life insurance policy exempt from tax. If you were planning to buy term insurance, the time to do so is now.

Save for Retirement - It’s never too soon to plan for your retirement, especially after knowing how pandemic the previous year went. This is an excellent year to plan and buy a suitable pension plan, which offers premium deductions under Sec 80C. But double-check if the payouts against annuity plans or received as lump-sum amounts may be partially or fully taxed. You can save paying any tax on the money invested in ULIPs, given the premiums do not cross ₹1.5 lakhs. Save for your retirement on Wizely app and earn rewards for achieving your financial targets. Source: https://wizely.in/wizeup/best-income-tax-saving-ways.