Finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram presented his eighth budget trying to strike a balance between reviving India’s growth trajectory and putting no extra burden on aam aadmi. Let’s have a glance over it how its going to affect us.

• Tax slabs have remained unchanged. However, there will be a gain of Rs 2000 by way of tax credit for those earning up to Rs 5 lakhs per annum by way of tax credit. 

• 10% surcharge on for those who earn  over 1 crore per annum. This will impact 42,800 Indians. 

• Good news for home buyers who plan to buy their first home .Mr Finanace minster has announced an additional deduction of Rs 1 lakh on payment of interest (besides. the 1.5 lakh deduction available now).The value of house should not exceed Rs 40 lakh and the loan should be up to 25 lakh.The loan should be taken in fiscal year 2013-14.This will help to save up to Rs 30000.

• Mr. Chidambaram has proposed a 1% tax deducted at source (TDS) on high value transactions of over Rs. 50 lakh on immovable properties. 

• Leather products get cheaper

• SUV”s will be costlier Excise duty on SUVs raised from 27% to 30%.  Import tax on luxury vehicles hiked to 100 per cent from 75 per cent, and on motorcycles with an engine capacity above 800cc to hiked 75 per cent from 60 per cent.

• Mobile phones costlier Handsets with a price tag of over Rs. 2,000 will attract 6 per cent excise duty.

• Eating out will be costlier  service tax on AC restaurants.

• Another reason to quite smoking excise duty on cigarettes has been hiked by 18 per cent.

• Good news for gold buyers gold import duty unchanged. The Budget also raised to Rs. 1 lakh the maximum value of jewellery that may be brought home by Indian women who have lived abroad for more than a year, or who are changing residence, from Rs. 20,000 earlier.

• Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme  First time investors investing  in mutual funds and listed shares will get tax benefits to three successive years.  Also, the limit for investors wanting to invest in RGESS has been raised to Rs. 12 lakh from Rs. 10 lakh earlier.

• Reduce securities transaction tax on equity futures to 0.01 per cent from 0.017 per cent currently

• However, it has imposed a commodities transaction tax (CTT) of 0.01 per cent of the price of every trade on futures contracts of non-agricultural commodities like gold, silver and base metals.

• Surcharge hiked to 10 per cent on domestic companies with annual income of more than Rs. 10 crore. For foreign companies, who pay the higher rate of corporate tax, the surcharge will increase from 2 per cent to 5 per cent.

• PSU banks to have ATMs at all their branches by March 31, 2014

• Mr. Chidambaram has proposed to set up the country's first women's bank as a public sector bank.

With Upcoming new budget for financial year 2013-14 that will be presented by finance minister Mr.
P. Chidambaram on 28th Feb 2013 most of us will keep an eye on Direct tax. As a common man most of us think of paying least tax and with good saving. Let analysis our expectation from eye of a salaried person. Here are the few top 10 expectation which a salaried person expect.Hope our almost all expectation will be fulfilled by our Finance Minister

1) Raise Income tax exemption limit to 3,00,000(presently it is 2,00,000) ..

2) Increase 10 % slab up to Rs 6,00,000 from earlier Rs 5,00,000

3) Increase in 80C deduction limit to Rs 1,50,000/- ,this will encourage saving among people

4) Restore 80CCF deduction for investment in Infrastructure Bonds with revised limit of Rs 30000/-.It will help infrastructure companies to raise money.Interest rate should be increased on these  bonds.

5) Increase Exemption of Transport allowance from present limit of Rs 800/- to Rs 4000/-.
6) Increase Medical reimbursement to Rs 30000/- , Children Education and hostel allowance to 750/- per month.

7)  Reduce Saving FDR for locking period from currently 5 years to 3 years.

8) Enhance the scope of Rajiv gandhi equity saving scheme(section 80CCG) by allowing investment by higher income(income more than 10 lakh) first time investor.

9) Increase in deduction for Interest on House loan for self occupied house to Rs 200000/- from earlier Rs 150000/- as housing cost is increasing day by day ,so person have to take higher value house loan to acquire /construct own house.

10) Leave encashment exemption Limit to 6,00,000 from 3,50,000 for non govt employee.

Have you ever had some problem with your Insurance company you should first approach the insurer’s Grievance Redressal Mechanism as spelt out in the insurance policy document (link to the insurers’ grievance mechanism is available in this website at List of Insurers).

In case the complaint is not fully attended to by the Insurer within 15 days of lodging it, you may use the IGMS for escalating the complaint to IRDA

IRDA has lauched the Integrated Grievance Management System (IGMS). Apart from creating a central repository of industry-wide insurance grievance data, IGMS is a grievance redress monitoring tool for IRDA. Policyholders who have grievances should register their complaints with the Grievance Redress Channel of the Insurance Company first. If policyholders are not able to access the insurance company directly for any reason, IGMS provides a gateway to register complaints with insurance companies.

Complaints shall be registered with insurance companies first and only if need be, be escalated them to IRDA (Consumer Affairs Department). IGMS is a comprehensive solution which not only has the ability to provide a centralised and online access to the policyholder but complete access and control to IRDA for monitoring market conduct issues of which policyholder grievances are the main indicators. IGMS has the ability to classify different complaint types based on pre-defined rules. The system has the ability to assign, store and track unique complaint IDs. It also sends intimations to various stakeholders as required, within the workflow. The system has defined target Turnaround Times (TATs) and measures the actual TATs on all complaints. IGMS sets up alerts for pending tasks nearing the laid down Turnaround Time. The system automatically triggers activities at the appropriate time through rule based workflows.

A complaint registered through IGMS will flow to the insurer's system as well as the IRDA repository. Updating of status will be mirrored in the IRDA system. IGMS enables generation of reports on all criteria like ageing, status, nature of complaint and any other parameter that is defined.

Thus IGMS provides a standard platform to all insurers to resolve policyholder grievances and provides IRDA with a tool to monitor the effectiveness of the grievance redress system of insurers

IGMS Complaint Logging
You can call the IRDA Grievance Call Centre

Toll Free Number: 155255
Timings: 8 AM to 8 PM -- (Monday to Saturday)