TDS is mandatory, never indulge in submitting false 15G or 15H declaration

TDS from interest on bank and other deposits are mandatory. If your interest income is more than Rs 10,000/- aggregating in all deposits of a particular branch in any financial year, the bank is bound to deduct TDS @10% on the interest. The rate will be doubled if the assessee fails to submit his PAN to the bank.
I have seen some bank branches where a notice is pasted such as "Submit Form 15G/15H to avoid TDS". This is completely misleading. An account holder can submit Form 15G or 15H(for senior citizens who attained 60 years in anytime in the financial year) only if his total income from all sources does not exceed the threshold limit on which no tax is required to be paid. That means the total income should be non taxable, below Rs 2,50,000/- for senior citizens and Rs 2,20,000/- for others for the current financial year (2013-14).
There is no provision that you declare to the bank not to deduct tax as you undertake to settle it yourself with the authorities. The bank has to deduct tax at source unless you submit form 15G or 15H and that only if you are within the non taxable limit.

Any false declaration in form 15G and 15H may lead to penalty and prosecution. So be careful before sumitting these forms and read the form carefully.
Form 15G and 15H has been modified recently.
Click here to download Form 15G and 15H.

National Pension System gives near double-digit returns

 The National Pension System (NPS) is fetching near double-digit returns, which is at least a percentage point higher than what employees' provident fund or public provident fund(PPF) offer. NPS is a voluntary long-term saving scheme for the private sector but mandatory for those who joined the government from 2004. 

According to the latest data, in case of the private sector, the top performance was on offer for those who had a significant exposure to corporate bonds with all five fund managers — SBI, UTI,ICICI, Reliance and Kotak — offering between 13.4% and 15% over the last one year. Even sinceinception, the returns have been in the 8.89-11.94% range. 

Corporate bonds are followed by government securities where the one-year return has been over 13.5% for all fund managers. For equity, where maximum exposure to shares is capped at 50%, returns over the last one year have ranged between 8.45% and 11.56%. 
The Employees Provident Fund Organization has fixed the interest rate for 2012-13 at 8.5%, while the government has announced that PPF would fetch 8.7% this fiscal. UTI's Retirement Plan, a mutual fund scheme that has been around since 1994, has offered returns of 10.5% since its launch, while one-year return is 8.62%. 

The flip side is that unlike PPF or EPF, the retirement corpus is subject to tax, although the government has promised to amend the law. But if you choose to use the entire amount to buy annuity, you may avoid paying tax. Individuals, who are not part of the government set up, caninvest anything upwards of Rs 6,000 a year under NPS and can withdraw 40% of the amount when they turn 60. The balance 60% has to be used to buy an annuity or a pension plan from aninsurance company that will earn you a monthly income for the rest of your life. 

When it comes to private sector, the scheme was opened in 2009 but has been slow to take off as fund managers have not pushed it too much given the low commission earned by them. As a result, a bulk of the funds, which added up to nearly Rs 29,000 crore at the end of March 2013, came from central and state government employees and NPS Lite, which is meant for low-income groups. 

Here, the returns seem to be even better as equity exposure is only 15%. Latest available data shows that over the last one year, central government employees earned over 12%, and at least 9.67% since inception, depending on the fund manager. For state government employees, one-year returns range between 12.8% and 13.3% (see table). 

Unlike the private sector, for government employees who joined from 2004, 10% contribution to pension fund is mandatory with their employer providing a matching contribution.
Source :Times of India