Tax-saving fixed deposits help you save on income tax outgo.Fixed deposits or FDs, the fixed income instruments which are highly popular among customers, are of two types: regular FDs with the facility of premature withdrawal and tax-saving FDs which do not have the facility of premature withdrawal.
Fixed deposits with premature withdrawal facility, however, do not offer income tax benefits.
Tax-saving fixed deposits help you save on income tax outgo.
However, tax-saving fixed deposits come with a lock-in period of five or 10 years.
The deadline for filing income tax returns (ITR) for assessment year 2018-19 is round the corner (July 31).If you did not make any tax-saving investments in the last fiscal, you should make some wise choices this year to invest your money in tax-saving schemes like fixed deposits for tenures of five or 10 years.
These fixed deposits also offer attractive interest rates.Consider this: a five-year tax-saving fixed deposit in State Bank of India (SBI) fetches you an interest rate of 6.75 per cent.
As compared to this, a five-year fixed deposit with ICICI Bank offers an interest rate of 7 per cent.Given below are fixed deposit interest rates of 10 major banks including SBI, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank:(All figures in per cent)Banks5-year10-yearSBI6.756.75HDFC Bank66ICICI Bank77PNB6.256.25Axis Bank7%7%Kotak Mahindra Bank6.56.5YES Bank7.17.1Bank of Baroda6.76.6IDBI Bank6.756RBL Bank7.257.25(Fixed deposit interest rates mentioned above are for deposits below Rs 1 crore as mentioned on the banks' websites.)Fixed deposits per se are a popular savings instrument.
A fixed deposit can be created easily even online.
Most banks offer this facility.Post offices also offer the facility of a fixed deposit account.Small Finance banks like AU Small Finance Bank and Suryoday Bank also offer fixed deposit accounts.