Tax-free returns from indexation in debt funds

Debt mutual funds offer excellent investment opportunity to retail investors. Debt mutual fund should be considered as a part of debt investment in the portfolio as it offers multiple benefits against other avenues. The most important benefit offered by debt mutual fund is taxation. Long-term holding in debt mutual fund is very tax-efficient.

How do you feel if you have made a profit on your investment, but do not have to pay tax on it or the tax payable is only on the partial profit made from the investment? You may want to know how this could be possible.

Long-term capital gain on debt mutual fund offers indexation benefit. If you invest in the debt mutual funds and the holding period is more than a year, the income from it will be treated as long-term capital gain. It will be taxed at 10%, or 20% with indexation benefits.

Under indexation, the cost of investment is raised to account for inflation for the period the investment is held. Indexation gives a benefit of cost inflation index (CII), which takes into account the effect of inflation and reduces the value of gains by increasing the value of the purchase amount. This helps reduce the tax amount. It's the government's way of keeping the real value of money. The longer the holding period of debt fund, the bigger is the indexation benefit. Moreover, there is also o TDS in debt funds for resident Indians.

How indexation works

If you invested R1 lakh in debt mutual funds on October 10, 2010, and it gives returns of 9% per annum, the value will become R1.09 lakh after a year. If you redeem it on October 13, 2011, you will get the following benefits:

* Cost of inflation index for 2011-12: 785; for 2010-11: 711

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