The joy of counting money goes out of the window as July approaches, for it is the dreaded time when you remember the tax man
Every year, on the 1st of July, my accountant’s man calls, to remind me, to get my tax papers ready. ’Oh, yes, I will send it in a day or two,” I nonchalantly reply. A week later, his assistant calls me to remind me I am late. I assure her, I am looking into it. So over the weekend, I rope in the dear hubby who is more sold on Wimbledon than anything else at that time of the year. After much nudging, he sits at the desktop, like an Uncle Podger. Where is the PPF challan, he hollers. Since I am perpetually on the phone, I do not hear it the first time. The volume goes up several decibels. So, I hurriedly end the interesting gupshup and dive for the bag into which I stuff all “important” papers. Going through some hundred odd scraps of paper, The ticket counterfoil of a movie I went to about ten years ago, my son’s fee receipt of 20 years’ vintage, the grocery bill which is 10 years old..everything but that elusive PPF challan.. The entire house resembles a war zone and after three full hours, I find it ! I heave a sigh of relief which is cut short as now I need to locate the various pieces of paper, companies send off and on. I have a file marked ’Demerger,Merger,allotments etc. Ah! This is no big deal,I tell myself and hand over the file. It has just one of the many scraps of paper! ‘Where are the rest?’ an exasperated hubby demands. So starts Search 2.After much hunting around, I manage to round up all the truant papers. Now begins an even more daunting exercise. When did you buy Co. Q, asks the expert. ’I did not, I counter. These companies have a rather nasty habit of buying up another company, then changing their name out of the blue and then dole out a share or two of yet another company they swallowed. All this process of reinvention has been carried out sneakingly behind my unsuspecting back. Agonizing hours later, each piece of the jigsaw puzzle fits in and we proceed to the next company. Needless to say, by the time hubby dear reaches the 400th company his nerves are stretched to the threshold point, blood vessels threaten to burst and patience has become gossamer thin!
“400 scrips, did you say?” asked a friend who is a Mutual Fund chairman! Even my fund has no more than 30 scrips! I had to explain sheepishly, that since I had no finance background , I had blindly trusted every tip offered by friends, total strangers and the so-called experts on business channels. Whatever had been bought for short-term gain stayed on to become long- term loss! “Don’t you have a stop loss,” he asked. I had till then only heard of a stop watch! Now I know better, after all the various scams which made off with my money. Being the eternal optimist, I always told myself, whatever goes down has to come up! So, I watch and wait. There have been great moments of mirth too, through this tragic play. When one of the leading brokers was buying up all IT shares, every IT company hit the upper circuit regularly. Those days there were no business channels on TV, or internet. I had been told to buy a particular software firm and so I placed the order for a huge number of shares. When the scam broke, markets crashed and I was forced to take delivery of shares, I realised that I had bought into a softwear company which manufactured underwear! Hubby dear never got tired of telling all and sundry about my beautiful ’ buy!! We live and learn!
That is digression enough. Coming back to the income tax returns, the trade book has been partially sorted out. “How did you sell 200 shares when you had only 50 with you” asks hubby. Start all over again. Hunt out that little paper which says they split the share and so you now have 100 shares. If that was not confusing enough, a few months later they gave a 1:1 bonus and therefore I now had 200 shares which I sold. .All this is unravelled after googling the share for split and bonus announcements. In the early days it was again hunting for that scrap of paper! The bank accounts have also to be accounted for. Every entry has to be explained. After all, it is my own money, why should I explain any of it, I resentfully ask myself. Finally every entry has been traced by jiggling my memory which at crucial times takes a vacation!
Now you know how tough it is to earn money, if any, on the stock market! My friends will have you believe that gambling on the bourses is a luxurious, utterly bereft of labour, kind of activity. Well, far from it. ! Year after year, when my accountant sees my balance sheet, he wonders whether my mental balance is in place. Each year ,as my returns get filed, nilly-willy a few seconds before midnight(thank God for the online return filing facility now) ,after much anxiety and heart burn, I tell myself, that come 1st August, I shall liquidate all my stocks, take the money and go on a well-deserved holiday. Well, I await that momentous day!
