Tax-Saving Equity Schemes Fail to Take Off
By siliconindia   |   Friday, 06 January 2012, 01:18 IST
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Tax-Saving Equity Schemes Fail to Take Off
Bangalore: The Direct Taxes Code (DTC) is surrounded by uncertainty whereas the equity market plays poorly. The confusion over DTC and the detoriating equity market has shown a great impact over the equity-linked-saving-schemes (ELSS) in the current financial year. The declining sales and net inflow in ELSS category is expected to weaken in the last quarter of FY12, according to Fund managers. The mutual funds scheme that is covered under Section 80C is regarded as ELSS, which means that the funds put into by money investor is reduced from taxable income, which helps to reduce taxes. The second half of the year is likely to witness rise of inflows in equity tax saving schemes. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of a bank-sponsored asset management company, who wants his identity to be concealed, said, "However, this year, investors have confusion over DTC, which will take away the tax exemption once it is implemented." The CMO further said, "We had anticipated that post-October flows would rise. But, November disappointed with net outflows and in December there was no visible rise in interest for ELSS." The tax saving equity scheme is showing negative returns of 17 percent over the past one year. Fund houses including, Canara Robeco, Franklin, Axis and ICICI Prudential are able to provide returns between 2 to 5 percent a year. CMO also said, "ELSS, too, could not keep themselves aloof. Forget taxes, investors sensed that in such markets they cannot even make any reasonable returns." As DTC will be enforced by April this year, investors can still buy ELSS this year. One can enjoy all the Section 80C benefits in any ELSS investment made till March 2012.

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