Factors Influencing Investment in Tax-Saving Schemes

From time to time, various tax-saving schemes are made available for the individual income tax assessees. These schemes have different features such as tax-benefit return, liquidity, safety, risk coverage, old age benefit, etc., which may influence and attract the assessees to invest. Whenever a new investment is made, not only the tax benefit on contribution but also the tax concession on the income arising out of such investment becomes an important consideration. A good investment is one, which ensures safety, profitability and liquidity. Investment planning is nothing but achieving a balance among these three principles i.e., safety, profitability and liquidity. Most of the investment in tax-saving schemes directly goes to the exchequer. Majority of the salaried assessees do not know that they could save considerable amount of income-tax by adopting suitable tax planning measures provided in the Income Tax Act. In this connection, they usually approach the tax consultants. The guidance and information provided by the tax consultants about the tax-saving schemes may not be suitable, adequate or in time. Ironically, the agencies dealing with tax-saving schemes also have not taken adequate steps to popularize their schemes among the assessees. The government is also interested to know which tax-saving scheme is mostly preferred by the salaried assessees for further investment, if the maximum qualifying limit for tax-saving schemes stands raised. Hence to provide a valid solution, both to the assessees and to the government, a study is undertaken among the salaried assessees in Erode District of Tamil Nadu. The analysis and result thereof is presented below.