Mr. Sukhbinder Sarnal has a roadways business in Kolkata and often travels to Chandigarh and Mumbai. He has one daughter and one son, aged 14 and 15yrs respectively, and his wife helps him in his business. After a number of tiring business trips, he is going with his family to visit Goa and Mumbai. He strongly believes that a holiday trip with his family once in a year makes him fit to work with full energy. No matter, even if it is expensive. Sukhbinder had also promised his wife to take the entire family to Singapore within a couple of years. Sukhbinder loves investment but he invests to meet short-term needs. He argues that his present investment objective is his planned trip to Singapore and a budget with a long-run perspective does not work well. For him, budget is just a method of worrying before and after spending money. His present investment portfolio includes Equities-20%, Growth Funds-20%, Income Funds-30%, Bonds-10%, Company FDs10%, Bank FDs-10%, Liquidity Focus: 70%-High, Safety Focus: 30%- Low Earnings Focus: High, Tax Angle: Less taken care of.

Martin DSouza is a chemical engineer by profession. He works in a FMCG plant in Pune and is on his way back to his home in Mumbai after spending his holidays at his in-laws place. His wife is a teacher in a secondary school in Pune and their twin daughters are in 7th standard. Martin refers spending money as and when required. He likes to follow what Harvey Mackay, the popular business motivational speaker says A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline. His investment approach is first to establish a relatively large foundation of secure, low-risk investments and then move up, step-by-step to potentially more rewarding growth-oriented schemes. Martin believes investment portfolio made for long-run is the best way to lay a secure foundation for his life goals. His present investment portfolio includes Equities-10%, Mutual Fund-20%, PPF-5%, PO-Recurring Deposit-5%, Insurance-20%, Bonds-25%, Bank FDs-15%, Liquidity Focus: 30%-Low, Safety Focus: 70%-High Earnings Focus: Less, Tax Angle: Highly taken care of.

The Howrah-Mumbai Geetanjali Express halts at Raipur. This is a small station in MP where the train stops for 5 minutes during normal Circumstances. However, a coach of another passenger train is derailed at a place 20 km from here and Geetanjali has not been given the green signal. Most of the passengers of coach number AS-2 are lazily lying down, except for the members of two families. Sukhbinder is reading The Tribune. The news of YV Reddy Commission, recommending the withdrawal of tax benefits from all types of investment avenues with tenure of less than 6 years, catches his attention. Nimmo and Vikram (his son and daughter) are playing with his co-passengers kids. His wife is sharing a cup of tea with Mrs DSouza, co-passenger. Martin is tired of searching for a copy of Financial Express at the station. He finally gives up and starts sharing the morning news with his co-passenger cum new friend, Sukhbinder.

Martin begins by asking Sukhbinder What do you think will be the implication, if the government decides to withdraw tax benefits for investments of tenure less than 6 years? Wife maintains an account in post-office scheme and surely its not going to be a good news for her. Martin is worried with this news because he has a significant amount of money invested in tax-savings bonds. Martin agrees Thats right, all investors like me will be badly affected with this decision, after all you cant rely on provident fund every time as a tax savings option, because the lock-in period is 15 years; too long. This time Sukhbinder finds his co-passengers views interesting and argues back Martin Saab, I do not believe in these tax-savings tools. My point is very simple; you earn money from different sources and pass 30% to government.

When, you are looking for tax-free income of 2 lakh in a year, you better look for earning of 2.9 lakh in a year and pass 30% to government. I first calculate my target tax-free income and then find out the sources of earning additional money to cover-up the tax outflow. Its really troublesome to find tax-savings tool because all these kinds of tools require your money to be blocked for a period of 3-5 years. I do not like it, because I prefer to build my investment portfolio for an earning purpose. However, this does not mean that I am careless of my tax burden but I prefer to ignore this kind of news items. Martin likes Sukhbinders style of thinking and smiles at him saying, Mr Sukhbinder, I wish, every one of us could think like you. And then, the future of these entire tax-savings bond will go for a toss, but dont you think, these tax-savings option play a big role in your portfolio generation?

Ultimately, you can maximise your earnings if you minimise your tax burden. Rule of 72 The Rule of 72 helps you estimate about how long it will take for your investments to double given a hypothetical rate of return. Divide 72 by your rate of return (say 10% and youve got your answer-seven years approximately. The Rule of 72 assumes your investments are tax deferred and earning compound interest. Martin is curious to hear Sukhbinders reply this time. Sukhbinder pauses and ignores Martins point Sir, I prefer to build my investment Portfolio for earning purpose that will be very liquid in nature; your argument of tax savings tool does not stand good for me as that is illiquid investment.

Martin tries to counter Sukhbinder But, a good portfolio does not mean only good earnings or good liquidity, you need to also consider safety of your investment and tax implication as a whole. Look at investments in equities, they are good from liquidity angle and can give good returns, but they fail on the safety front and any short-term gains you make, you shell out a capital gains tax of 30%. This time, Sukhbinder looks quite cornered, but is not yet ready to give up.

Sukhbinder says You are right Mr. Martin, but you can make enough money, if you know how to manage your equity investment. I invested in growth stocks and debt mutual funds. Growth stocks are risky but my investment in debt funds will balance that risk. Ive also invested in tax-free

bonds to minimise my tax-burden. In the mean time, Vikram, the son of Sukhbinder asks his father Papa, do you know the answer to this? Vikram is looking for an answer to a puzzle, which he explains to his father There is an old lady with her pet tiger, a goat and a stack of grass, who wants to cross a river. But there is a small problem. The lady cannot move alone anywhere. In her presence, the tiger will not attack the goat nor will the goat consume the grass but in her absence, there is a chance that the tiger can eat the goat or the goat can eat the grass. Now she wants to cross the river and there is only one boat, which can take only two of them at a time. How can the lady cross the river in four attempts?

Sukhbinder thinks for a while and tries to ignore his son saying Beta, you ask Nimmo. She will tell you. Sukhbinder comes back to the discussion. He wanted to convince Martin that his portfolio is a good one as it promises to fetch best earnings, liquid in nature although it does not consider safety and tax minimisation. Sukhbinder says to Martin You know Mr. Martin, this argument between portfolio for long-term and portfolio for short-term always remind me one basic question-Why do we invest? Sukhbinder continues, Because, we need to earn more but more earnings are possible only if you take more risk, which in turn implies less safety. And you also require liquidity for your investment.

Considering all these factors, there cannot be something like an ideal investment portfolio. Martin defends his views No, Mr Sukhbinder, an ideal investment portfolio never clashes with the approaches to build an ideal investment portfolio. What does that mean? asks Sukhbinder. Martin replies Your investment portfolio could be meant for different kinds of objectives like one may look for regular returns from his portfolio and one may like to see his portfolio growing consistently with time. However, even in the trajectory of these two objectives, your approach for building the suitable portfolio must be same. That is, you need to maintain a good balance among your earnings, safety, liquidity and tax savings. Balance is the most crucial aspect.

Questions:

1. Prepare an investment grid and compare different investment avenues available in todays scenario taking care of the financial objectives of Sukhbinder and Martin.

2. What was the Sukhbinders style of thinking in investing?

3. What are the tax savings bonds?

4. List the dos and donts of wise investing.