Finance

Tip Tuesdays: Always Check for Service Tax Charges and Ask If You Don’t See It

Posted Vinaya HS

Don’t forget this — ever.

With the number of services being brought under the service tax net increasing continually, it’s good to keep the applicable service tax charges in mind when perusing a financial product or service offer.

For example:

Though your monthly cellular rental might be quoted as Rs 249, the actual rental is Rs 249 + 12.36% service tax = Rs 279.78. In general, the higher the bill, the higher the service tax charges.

Given human psychology, there’s good incentive for service providers to hide the service tax charges within fine print. It’s therefore prudent on your part to ask what the service charges are if you don’t find them published.

Tip Tuesdays is my new initiative to share practical personal finance tips — every Tuesday. I’d be delighted if you could share a tip or two from your own experiences. Drop a comment or use this form to submit your tip. And, as always, do spread the word if you find this useful.

10 thoughts on “Tip Tuesdays: Always Check for Service Tax Charges and Ask If You Don’t See It”

  1. Hi Vinaya,

    Great to see the reviews that you keep posting on Insurance products. I too have become sick and tired of the constant flow of tell-calls from these companies. For a long time I am thinking (too lazy to put in the effort) about the merits/ demerits of a plain vanilla term insurance plan. Is there a place where all such plans can be compared and purchased online ?

    Hope this gives you juice for a post ;)

    -Ashutosh

  2. Hi Vianaya,
    Till recently, I use to keep all my earned money in the normal savings account in the bank. I never bothered to check what is the interest rate I am getting on the money I have in my bank. Later while talking to a friend, I found that it is almost nothing.. He suggested me to move my money into some Fixed Deposits (which I can do directly from online) and while I was exploring that I found that in a year I almost missed making at least Rs25K out of interest!!. Financial literacy is what all it comes to. Still I am not clear with other options I may have. I hope you can make us more aware of such small day-today things we can do to save our own money.
    -Pavan

  5. an ULIP agent is bugging my life by constantly calling me all the time……i so very much regret that i said yes to him coming and giving a free financial planning advice.
    what do u think a single 30 year old female should invest in before getting married in 4 years time.? ppf ?rbi bonds ?elss. i already have fixed deposits

  6. I read you account closing tips on Citibank Suvidha. It is a good account to have when your salary reaches them. Otherwise dont even touch it. They will do all things to make sure you ahve a bad experience. I left the country for a while and the salary was not credited through the account. They just closed the account down without any intimation with still my money in that account. ICICI Bank or Any nationalized banks will never do this. Practically when I called I got to know that the account is closed and they said the balance will be couriered to a nearest bank and go collect ! I dont know how they get to do all these with public money. I feel CITIBANK is horrible bank to have a relationship with and best I feel is ICICI and in core nationalized banks it is Union Bank of India no doubt.

  9. Before converting to General account Bank need to inform to the customers at least for one time but Citi Bank is not informing because their intention is to cheat the customers so from a running account also they are deducting the charges who balance is less than the minimum account what I faced the situation

  10. Thanks for the information , god bless you, i was not able to contact any live person on
    citibank telephone line and i could not get answers, but i got from you
    thanks
    suresh

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