What Changes From April 1, 2022?

As we usher in the new financial year 2022-2023 from April 1, 2022, few things in the personal finance space shall see a change and these surely need your attention. So, here are summarised the changes beginning new month and new fiscal year 2022-2023:

Post Office Accounts shall not be paying interest in cash

The interest in lieu of Post office MIS, SCSC or term deposit shall not be paid in cash from April 1, 2022. The department of Post hence stressed that such account holders should link their post office savings account with these accounts. "The interest will only be credited only in the account holder's post office savings account or bank account. In case the account holder is not able to link his/her savings account with Senior Citizen Savings Scheme, Monthly Income Scheme and Term Deposit accounts accounts, the outstanding interest should be paid only through credit in post office savings account or by cheque," it said.

Crypto tax

The Lower house of the Parliament on Friday approved the amendments in the Finance Bill, 2022 concerning the taxation of virtual digital assets or VDAs or 'crypto tax'. Clause (2) (b) of the Section 115BBH will stop losses from dealing in crypto from being set off against the income derived under "any other provisions' ' within the IT Act. Indeed the losses in crypto cannot be set off against gains made from crypto.

Also, there will be a 30% tax implication on any income or profits arising from the transfer of crypto assets.

Furthermore, other than the 30% tax on capital gains on crypto, there shall also arise 1% TDS liability on buying and selling of cryptos together with taxes on crypto gifts.

Higher TDS/TCS implication from April 1 on non-filing of ITR for Fy 2020-21:

In Budget 2021, the ruling regarding higher TDS, TCS implication was announced and the same has been modified to make it more stern in Budget 2022. Consequently from the new Fy 2022-23 as per the modified ruling in a case if an individual has filed ITR for Fy 2019-20 but not filed ITR for Fy 2020-21 and total TDS in the same fiscal year has been over Rs 50,000, then higher TDS, TCS will be deducted from his/her income from April 1, 2022.

The higher TDS, TCS rate will apply on specific sources of income including interest income from recurring deposits, fixed deposits, dividend income, annuity payments etc.

Likely change in small savings scheme interest rate

Interest rate on post office small savings schemes have been left unaltered for seven straight quarters. Further as per the country's central bank-RBI, the small savings schemes offer a higher rate currently in comparison to bank fixed deposits. RBI in a report titled 'State of the Economy' said "The current interest rates on SSIs are 42-168 bps higher than the formula-based rates for Q4:2021-22," the RBI added in its report. However, the government is now likely to review the interest rates on small savings schemes for Q1 FY23 on 31 March 2022.

So, accordingly after the EPF rate has been slashed, there is a high chance that interest on small savings schemes such as PPF, MIS etc. will be brought down

LPG rate revision

Every month LPG rates are revised as a common practice. Furthermore, prices of liquified petroleum gas in India are revised based on the formula called import parity price or IPP. So, generally the new rates come into effect from the 1st of every month and hence there is a likely chance that LPG rates may be revised. Importantly, just a week before on March 22, 2022 LPG rates were hiked by Rs. 50 per cylinder.