Save more tax with infrastructure bond

BUDGET 2010 saw the Finance Minister doling out sops to push infrastructure investments in the country. One key sop - the tax benefit to individuals on investment of up to Rs 20,000 in infrastructure bonds under section 80CCF. And this, over an above the current limit of Rs 1 lakh that section 80C provides.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has now notified New Infrastructure Bonds. An individual or Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) can invest in these new infrastructure bonds up to Rs 20,000 in a financial year. LIC, IFCI, IDFC and other NBFCs classified as Infrastructure Company by RBI will be allowed to issue these bonds, called Long Term Infrastructure Bonds.

The minimum application amount for these bonds is Rs 5,000 and multiples thereof for each option.

The issue opens on August 9, 2010 and closes on August 31, 2010.

Features of the bond:

- The bonds will be of 10 year tenure

- The minimum lock in period for an investor shall be five years. After 5 years the investor may exit either through the secondary market or through a buyback facility, specified by the issuer in the issue document at the time of issue.


- Permanent Account Number is must to apply these bonds.

- These infrastructure bonds are not tax free. Interest on these bonds is taxable in the hands of investor, however, no TDS is deducted from interest.

- A demat account is mandatory to apply; any application without demat account details would be rejected. Submitting an attested pan card copy of the first holder is also compulsory while applying.

Laptops between Rs 35,000 to Rs 50,000

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Currently, an entry-level laptop can handle applications that were difficult for even mainstream laptops to work with earlier. Since existing computing platforms are refreshed once a year and newer platforms are introduced every two years, the prices of laptops undergo revision every few months.


The changes in platforms include new chipsets, support for newer generation of CPUs and faster memory support for new wireless standards, better GPUs, and so on. So, unless you're waiting for a new platform to release, it's always a good time to buy a new laptop.

There's no point in waiting for months in anticipation for a price drop, because it will further drop in the next few months. A lot has changed in the recent past, especially after the introduction of Intel's new Core Series of CPUs. They have successfully replaced the old Pentium Dual Core and the Core 2 Duo CPUs. With technologies like Hyper-Threading, multitasking on laptops, even in this budget, is a piece of cake. Although today, you might find some older hardware on some cheaper laptops, on the whole, entry-level and mainstream laptops are certainly more powerful and feature-rich than what they were a year ago.