LTA Claim - Must know things

Leave Travel Allowance (aka LTA) affects every salaried employee. In the start I got a lot of confusion too, but after doing a little research I found some information, which may be helpful for you as well. Let me first tell you in brief, then I'll try to explain in detail.

• LTA is always from Jan 1st to 31st Dec . So current block is Jan 1 , 2010 - 31st Dec 2013
• You can claim 2 journey's in 4 yrs block.
• You can claim LTA just one time in a year. So if there are two journey's, You can claim just one . The best thing to do is that you claim one and other your Wife :)
• If somehow you have not utilized your 2 claims in a year, You can carry forward 1 LTA claim to next Block and have to utilize it in the First year of next Block . So all the people who have any Claim remaining after 2009 , they can claim one extra in next block of 2010-2013 (Total 3, 1 in the first year for sure)
  

Also do remember, By saying LTA claim duration for a year is an 1st to 31st Dec doesn't mean you need to claim it before 31st Dec. You can claim it till 10th March (or before, check with your HR).


Now there are some more rules (yes many more) about LTA, which I'm trying to summarizing here:

1. You can get LTA only if you have applied for leave from your company (like minimum 3 leaves in my company) and have actually traveled. However, international travel is not valid. You must have traveled within the country.
2. Only the travel costs (not entire holiday cost) are covered. So, whether you fly, hope on to a train or take public transport, you will have to show the ticket to claim your LTA. This means you will need to keep your air, rail or public transport ticket.
3. If you travel by car and it is owned by a central government organization like ITDC, the state government or the local body, then LTA is permitted. If you could not get public transport and resorted to private transport like renting a car, get a bill issued by the rental company. If the bill is not accepted by your employer, you can always file an income tax return, claim an exemption and get a refund.
4. LTA covers travel for yourself and your family accompanied by you (of course). Family, in this case, includes yourself, parents, siblings dependent on you, spouse (even if your spouse is working) and children. For children born after October 1, 1998, the exemption is restricted to only two surviving children (unless, of course, one birth has resulted in multiple children like twins and triplets).
5. LTA is not related to when you started your employment. The government fixes blocks of years. These blocks are calendar years (January 1 to December 31). The current block is 2010-2013 (January 2010 to December 2013). The earlier one was from 2006-09 (January 2006 to December 2009). During this time period, a person is entitled to two LTA claims.
6. Though you can claim two journeys in a block of four years, you can claim the LTA benefit just once in a year. You cannot claim both the journeys in one year. So, while a person can get an income tax exemption for two journeys in a block of four calendar years, he can make a trip only once a year. If you make two trips in a year, you lose one. One way out is to claim one and make your spouse claim the other.
7. You can carry forward your LTA. One LTA can be brought forward and claimed in the first year of the next block. Let's say you do not take your LTA in 2002-05. Or that you use only one LTA. Don't worry, you will be able to take the pending LTA in 2006. This means that, in the 2006-09 block, you will be totally entitled to the three journeys.
8. If you switch jobs, you can get the LTA not only from your present organization but also from your former employer, if the concession is lying non-utilized. Let's say that, in the 2002-05 block, you claimed LTA in 2003. In 2004, you switched jobs. You can still claim your second journey with your new employer. Of course, your new employer will ask to look at your earlier tax returns to see whether it has been claimed or not.
9. If your LTA is not utilized, it gets added to your salary and you will be taxed on it. Let's say you and your spouse are both employed and both have LTA as part of the salary package. Your LTA is Rs 20,000 and hers is Rs 20,000 too. Both of you and your child go for a holiday. The tickets for the three of you amount to Rs 15,000. You supply the tickets to your office and this amount will be eligible for a tax deduction; the balance Rs 5,000 will be taxed. You can claim exemption only to the tune of your expenditure. If you claim this, your spouse will not be able to claim this same holiday from her employer. His/ Her Rs 20,000 will be taxed. Unless, of course, you go for another holiday and he/ she claims it. Or, let's say, you spend Rs 30,000 on tickets but your LTA is just Rs 20,000. You can claim up to Rs 20,000 and tell your spouse to claim his/ her ticket from his/ her employer.
10. You must take the shortest route to your destination to be eligible for LTA. Let's say you are going from Delhi to Mumbai on a holiday. So the cost of your travel from Delhi to Mumbai and Mumbai to Delhi will be eligible for LTA. If you decide to go to Mumbai via Agra, Jhansi and Itarsi, your LTA from Delhi to Agra will be covered. But Agra to Mumbai will not be covered.
    

Let's take another scenario. You traveled from Mumbai -- Kerala -- Delhi -- Mumbai.
If you take a direct connection, you will be eligible for LTA. Mumbai -- Kerala -- Delhi -- Mumbai: LTA covered
But if you throw in Hyderabad, then it goes out of gear.

Mumbai -- Thiruvananthapuram: LTA covered
Thiruvananthapuram -- Hyderabad -- Delhi: LTA not covered
Delhi -- Mumbai: LTA covered

OMG! 31st July ... Don't worry

OMG, 31st July is just at the door, and you didn't filed the return yet. So worried! Relax, there is no need to be unduly worried.
I don't know how many of you know that the last date of filing the return is 31st March of second financial year, but yes, it is true.

According to the government site of income tax department, www.incometaxindia.gov.in,

• "may be furnished at any time before the expiry of two years from the end of the financial year in which the income was earned." [1]

For example, this means that for income earned during the financial year 2008-09 (i.e. from April 1st' 2008 to March 31st' 2009). returns can filed any time before March 31st' 2011.

Please note that, Salaried individuals whose tax has already been deducted at source by the companies they work for and there is no further income tax to be paid, need not fret over missing July 31 deadline. They can easily file their return after, without having to pay anything extra. This applies to anybody who has already met his or her tax liabilities.
However, individuals should also take note of :

• Section 271(F) of the Income Tax Act, which allows the assessing officer of the income tax department to levy a fine of 5000 INR if the returns are filed after date (March 31' 2010 in above example)
• Paying the Tax late does come with some cost attached to it. In terms of repercussions, a simple interest of 1% per month will be levied on any tax due.

Also note that, filing late tax may not be an option for everyone, especially for individuals who have a business or capital loss. For them it is advisable to file returns before July 31.

• "Because if you have any business loss or capital loss (long-term or short-term), the same cannot be carried forward for set-off against future income, if the returns are not filed in time"

Filing income tax your Self

[1] http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/questionbank.htm#D56

How to claim HRA and home loan benefits both

I people crabbing about the confusion to claim HRA while paying Home loan for the Tax redemption under Government Acts 80C & 24. I collected some information, which may help in clearing the doubt.
The basic question here is, "If you are servicing a home loan, do you get the HRA benefit or not?"
Answer is simple as well, "That depends on the situation you are in."
Let's look at the various scenarios.

1. Home in another city
2. Living in your own home
3. Home not ready
4. Home not suitable
5. House on rent

Let's discuss it one by one.

1. Home in another city

Your house is in one city but you reside in another. Let's say you have taken a home loan to buy a house in Goa. But you work and, hence, reside in Delhi.

What you will be entitled to

- Tax benefit on principal repayment under Section 80C
- Tax benefit on interest payment under Section 24
- HRA benefit

2. Living in your home

You have taken a home loan and are now living in the home you have bought with the help of the loan. So, the home loan is for a home in the same city. For instance, you have taken a home loan to buy a home in Delhi and you reside in Delhi and live in this home.

What you will be entitled to

- Tax benefit on principal repayment under Section 80C
- Tax benefit on interest payment under Section 24

You will not be entitled to HRA, since you are not residing in a rented accommodation.

3. Home not ready

Let's say you are residing on one city and have taken a loan to buy a home in the same city. But the home is not ready, forcing you to rent a place. For instance, you have taken the loan to buy a place in Delhi but you are staying in a rented accommodation in Delhi itself because your home is not ready for occupation.

What you will be entitled to

- Tax benefit on principal repayment under Section 80C
- Tax benefit on interest payment under Section 24
- HRA benefit

You can claim tax benefits on the housing loan only if your home is ready to live in during that financial year. Once the construction on your home is complete, the HRA benefit stops.

4. Home not suitable

You took a home loan and have got the home. But you are not staying in it for genuine reasons.

It could be that the home is at a considerable distance from your work place. Or, it could be that the home is rather small and your parents are living in it so you have to stay elsewhere.

Though your rental accommodation and home are in the same city, you can still get all the benefits.

What you will be entitled to

- Tax benefit on principal repayment under Section 80C
- Tax benefit on interest payment under Section 24
- HRA benefit

However, it is necessary you have some of your belongings at your home (the one you own) and you stay there on and off on weekends and holidays.

Despite this, if your employer does not agree and denies your tax benefits, you will have to claim it at the time of filing your tax returns.

5. House on rent

You took a home loan, got possession of the house and have rented it out for a neat amount. You continue to stay in a rented accommodation.

What you will be entitled to

- Tax benefit on principal repayment under Section 80C
- Tax benefit on interest payment under Section 24
- HRA benefit

However, please note the rent you receive would be considered as your taxable income.

Apart from the above tax benefits, you can also claim a deduction on property taxes and repairs and maintenance on the home you have rented out. Deduction of repairs and maintenance is claimed @ 30% of (Rent received & Property taxes). This is a flat deduction and you don't need to submit any bills for the same. The ceiling of Rs 150,000 on interest deduction is not applicable.

In short, HRA and home loan benefits are independent. If you satisfies the respective conditions, you can claim both.

The Ultimate Top 25 Chuck Norris “The Programmer” Jokes

1. When Chuck Norris throws exceptions, it’s across the room.

2. All arrays Chuck Norris declares are of infinite size, because Chuck Norris knows no bounds.

3. Chuck Norris doesn’t have disk latency because the hard drive knows to hurry the hell up.

4. Chuck Norris writes code that optimizes itself.

5. Chuck Norris can’t test for equality because he has no equal.

6. Chuck Norris doesn’t need garbage collection because he doesn’t call .Dispose(), he calls .DropKick().

7. Chuck Norris’s first program was kill -9.

8. Chuck Norris burst the dot com bubble.

9. All browsers support the hex definitions #chuck and #norris for the colors black and blue.

10. MySpace actually isn’t your space, it’s Chuck’s (he just lets you use it).

11. Chuck Norris can write infinite recursion functions…and have them return.

12. Chuck Norris can solve the Towers of Hanoi in one move.

13. The only pattern Chuck Norris knows is God Object.

14. Chuck Norris finished World of Warcraft.

15. Project managers never ask Chuck Norris for estimations…ever.

16. Chuck Norris doesn’t use web standards as the web will conform to him.

17. “It works on my machine” always holds true for Chuck Norris.

18. Whiteboards are white because Chuck Norris scared them that way.

19. Chuck Norris doesn’t do Burn Down charts, he does Smack Down charts.

20. Chuck Norris can delete the Recycling Bin.

21. Chuck Norris’s beard can type 140 wpm.

22. Chuck Norris can unit test entire applications with a single assert.

23. Chuck Norris doesn’t bug hunt as that signifies a probability of failure, he goes bug killing.

24. Chuck Norris’s keyboard doesn’t have a Ctrl key because nothing controls Chuck Norris.

25. When Chuck Norris is web surfing websites get the message “Warning: Internet Explorer has deemed this user to be malicious or dangerous. Proceed?”.

My first day at job

I remember the day of my joining in naukri, my first job. It was 13th June'2005. My joining at this date was conflicting with my last practical of my final year. But I managed to give my practical 2 days before, as I got good examiner. Now main thing was to shift all the luggage and to find a room to stay. For that, my brother-in-law (jiju) helped me a lot.
Tha previous day, I was feeling very nervous after all it was my first job and I've many things iin my mind about that. I set the alarm to 7:00 clock in the morning as my reporting was at 09:30 in the morning.
Usually alarm don't work for me, as I usually use snooze feature to enjoy few more minutes of sleep. But that day, I wake up three times before seven. I don't what was that, but mind was not that stable. Well, I dressed, ate my breakfast and got dropped at Mamura chowk to catch a new bus for the office. City was almost stranger to me, so I kept asking people about the path.
After getting down from the bus near my office, I moved towards my office. My heart beets was at it's peak. As soon as reached office, I reported at the reception. The receptionist called the HR guy, who took 10-15 minutes long to come to meet me. Mean while I was just watching the people coming and punching there access card at the door. I tried few newspapers, but couldn't concentrate over that.
Suddenly I saw the known face of the HR guy. We shook hand, and he took me to my working floor. My desk was undecided, so I hijacked some other person's desk as she was absent that day. People came to me to say hi, and I replied with the smile. I was watching over the cubical seeing other human creatures working very closely with their systems. It was looking like my computer practical lab, but difference here was that they were unknown to me.
Suddenly one lady appeared to me with a beautiful smile. I knew her as she took my technical interview in third round. She asked about me & my email id. Then she forwarded me the links to study. Everything was going so smooth, opposite to what I thought. At 6:00 PM I left office, but now I was feeling happy. I called home & talked with mom & dad and told them about my first day experience. After reaching at room, I felt very relaxed.

I felt happy as my first day at my first job went so smoothly.

Places to visit in South India

"Sair kar duniya ki galib, zindgani phir kahan...
Zingani gar rahi to, naujawani phir kahan .."

I recently moved to Bangalore, South India. It is completely new for me. In the starting I was just wondering that what are the places here worth to give a visit for the entertainment. I did a small research and I found a list of those. I think that it may be useful for others as well, so listing here:

• Mekedattu
• Shivansamudram
• Pearl valley
• Nandi hills
• Mysore
• Ranaganathittu
• Shravanabelagola
• Talakad
• Somnathpur
• BR Hills
• Nandi Hills
• Horseley hills
• Kollimalai hills
• Skanda giri
• Hoganekkal
• Wayanad
• Kudremukh
• Hampi
• Jog falls
• Kodagu
• Masinagudi
• Bandipur
• Achalubetta
• Chikmagalur
• Galibore fishing camp
• Ooty
• Yelagiri
• Shivaganga
• Devanarayana Durga
• Namada chillume
• Madugiri fort
• Channarayana Durga hills
• Pondichery
• Badami
• Patadakal
• Aihole

Cheers!