CA. Akhilesh Kumarcaakhilesh.in
Open Finance GPT

Tax, Money & the Working Behind Both

32 pieces on direct tax, GST, investing and personal finance, from a Chartered Accountant who runs a finance function. Newest first.

DIRECT TAXOld Regime or New:How to ActuallyDecideFind your break-even deduction D; old regimewins only if real deductions exceed it.CA Akhilesh Kumar· caakhilesh.inTAX PAYABLE · OLD VS NEW REGIMENIL₹8L₹12L₹16L₹20L₹24LOLDNEWILLUSTRATIVE · INCOME →1 numberBreak-evendeduction DYearlySalaried canswitchOnceBusinessincome:near-fixedTAX PAYABLE · OLD VS NEW REGIMENIL₹8L₹12L₹16L₹20L₹24LOLDNEWILLUSTRATIVE · INCOME →Nº 41
Featured 18 Aug 2026

Old Regime or New: How to Actually Decide

The comparison everyone runs is the wrong one. Instead of asking which regime is better, work out your break-even deduction — the single number that settles it in about two minutes.

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Career 16 Sept 2026 01 India Job Market 2026: What the Data Actually Shows Behind the Layoff Headlines India job market 2026 trends with the numbers, not the noise: white-collar hiring at a three-year high, unemployment at 5.1%, which sectors are hiring, the AI jobs paradox, gig work, the skills that get you hired — and how to check a role's pay evidence or a suspicious offer before you act. Read more Direct Tax 15 Sept 2026 02 Influencer Tax Planning in India (2026-27): How Creators, Freelancers and Small Businesses Save Tax the Legal Way Social media income tax planning, worked out on real numbers: when the 6% presumptive scheme makes you tax-free, when an HUF genuinely works, when an LLP or Pvt Ltd pays for itself — and the free business tax planning tool that runs all of it on your figures. Read more Markets 14 Sept 2026 03 Altman Spells Out the AI Slowdown: Safety Cases, Two Red Lines, and a China Problem Nobody Can Solve Alone Forty-eight hours after three rivals agreed AI should slow down, Sam Altman said how: safety cases before big training runs, outside auditors, no waiting for Washington. Then Trump said no, Beijing called it fear-mongering, and the chip stocks that feed the labs fell hard in Asia. The state of play, in plain English. Read more Markets 13 Sept 2026 04 Anthropic, OpenAI and Elon Musk Just Agreed on Something Rare: AI Needs to Slow Down Dario Amodei, Sam Altman and Elon Musk — three people who have spent years disagreeing in public — said the same thing within hours of each other. What actually happened, what triggered it, and what the sceptics say, in plain English. Read more Markets 12 Sept 2026 05 AI Is Cutting Your Own Hand: What the Data Shows About Human Skills, Thinking and Trust It is not AI losing anything. Brain scans, a study of 666 people and the month bots became the majority of web traffic show what happens to human skill, thinking and judgment when we hand over the hard part. Read more Fintech 11 Sept 2026 06 Anthropic's September 2026 Threat Report: Hackers, Spies and Propagandists Tried to Weaponise Claude, and Were Caught A Russian espionage group, a lone hacker in France, a company selling election manipulation as a service. Anthropic's latest threat report lists who tried to misuse Claude over nine months, what they got, and where each one was stopped. A plain-language walk through it. Read more Personal Finance 11 Sept 2026 07 iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Duo: The Full India Price Breakdown, the iPhone 17 Pro Comparison, and Why You Pay More Here Apple skipped the standard iPhone 18 entirely and launched premium-only hardware. Every India price, the year-on-year jump, and the arithmetic behind the gap. Read more Markets 10 Sept 2026 08 AI and the Economy: Three Futures for Jobs, Wages and Who Gets the Money A new economic model sketches three versions of the next five years, from mild to wild. In every one the economy grows. What changes is who ends up holding the gains. Read more Corporate 10 Sept 2026 09 The Big 4 Articleship Roadmap: Eligibility, the Four Rounds, Stipends and a Study Plan The rules changed in 2023 and a lot of advice still hasn't caught up. Two years, both groups cleared first, four hiring rounds, and what the stipend actually is. Read more Direct Tax 09 Sept 2026 10 New Tax Regime Slabs for FY 2026-27 Under the Income-tax Act, 2025: Rates, Rebate, and the Basic Exemption Limit Explained The seven slabs, the ₹75,000 standard deduction, the rebate that makes income up to ₹12 lakh tax-free, and why the basic exemption limit is still ₹4 lakh. The rate card for tax year 2026-27, with worked examples. Read more Markets 08 Sept 2026 11 Three Crises, One Week: How a Trade War, a Middle East War, and an Oil Shock Are Colliding Right Now Canada's retaliatory tariffs went live today, the Strait of Hormuz is still disrupted six months into the Iran war, and economists are openly split on recession. The three are feeding each other — and the connecting thread is oil and inflation. Read more Direct Tax 08 Sept 2026 12 NRI Property TDS Under Section 195: Why the Buyer Withholds Far More Than Your Tax Bill, and the Form 13 Fix That Stops It (2026) The buyer deducts tax on the whole sale price, not your gain, and the excess sits with the department until a refund arrives. Form 13, now Form 128, applied for before registration, is what replaces that default with your real number. Read more Markets 07 Sept 2026 13 India's 7.8% Quarter: What the GDP Release Actually Says, and the Question Underneath It The economy grew 7.8% in real terms and 10.3% in nominal terms. The gap between those two figures is where most of the argument about this quarter actually lives. Read more Direct Tax 06 Sept 2026 14 Selling Property in India as an NRI: Why the Buyer Withholds Tax on the Whole Price, and How to Stop It (2026) The buyer deducts tax on your sale price, not your profit — often three or four times what you actually owe. One certificate, applied for before you sign, is what closes that gap. Read more Corporate 05 Sept 2026 15 Recovering Money From Debtors as an MSME: The ODR Portal, MSMED Act Interest and Your Legal Options (2026) 45 days to pay, compound interest at three times the Bank Rate, a 90-day council deadline — and a filing portal that changed in October 2025. How MSME recovery actually works now. Read more Direct Tax 05 Sept 2026 16 NRI Residential Status in India: The Day Count That Decides Whether Your Global Income Is Taxable (2026) 182 days, 120 days, 60 days — and a rule that can make you a tax resident with zero days in India. How residential status actually works, and what it costs to get wrong. Read more Corporate 04 Sept 2026 17 Starting a Business in India as a Foreign Entity: Entry Routes, Costs, Tax & Compliance (2026) Subsidiary, JV, LLP, branch or liaison office — what each route really costs in tax and compliance, and what changed in FDI policy through 2026. Read more Personal Finance 31 Aug 2026 18 Indian Credit Cards, Decoded: Real Lounge Access, Reward Value & Forex Costs (August 2026) A data-backed comparison built from current issuer terms, not a "we swiped 47 cards at the airport" stunt piece. Read more Direct Tax 16 Aug 2026 19 Capital Gains After the 2024 Overhaul The July 2024 changes did more than move rates. They removed indexation for most assets, flattened holding periods, and quietly changed which investments make sense to hold. Read more Investing 14 Aug 2026 20 The 4% Rule Is a Starting Point, Not a Plan It came from a 1994 study of a single country, a single asset mix, and a 30-year window. Useful — but people are loading far more weight onto it than it was built to carry. Read more Direct Tax 11 Aug 2026 21 Presumptive Taxation: Who It Fits, and the Traps Sections 44AD and 44ADA let small businesses and professionals declare income as a percentage of turnover and skip the books. Genuinely useful — and routinely misapplied. Read more Direct Tax 08 Aug 2026 22 The TDS Calendar That Prevents Most Notices Almost every TDS notice I see traces back to one of four things, and all four are calendar problems rather than technical ones. A working routine to avoid them. Read more Investing 06 Aug 2026 23 Index Funds Won. Now What? Passive investing went from heresy to default in forty years. The interesting questions are no longer about whether it works, but about what happens when almost everyone does it. Read more Direct Tax 03 Aug 2026 24 Six Filing Mistakes That Generate Notices The department's systems now cross-check your return against a great deal of data it already holds. Most notices are the result of a mismatch nobody looked for before filing. Read more GST 30 Jul 2026 25 GST for a Small Service Business, End to End When registration becomes compulsory, what changes the day it does, and the three recurring obligations that follow. Written for the freelancer or small firm crossing the line for the first time. Read more Personal Finance 27 Jul 2026 26 Your Emergency Fund Is Probably the Wrong Size Three to six months of expenses is the standard answer. It is also a number nobody derived from anything. Here is how to compute yours from actual inputs. Read more Corporate 18 Jul 2026 27 Reading a Cash Flow Statement Like an Investor Earnings are an opinion; cash is a fact. A working tour of the third statement, and the five lines that tell you the most about a business. Read more Corporate 05 Jul 2026 28 SaaS Metrics That Actually Predict Anything Most dashboards track a dozen numbers and forecast with none of them. A short list of the metrics that survive contact with a board meeting. Read more Fintech 22 Jun 2026 29 Stablecoins and the Quiet Rewiring of Payments Strip away the price speculation and something more mundane is happening underneath: a parallel settlement rail, and incumbents quietly building on it. Read more Investing 11 Jun 2026 30 Sequence-of-Returns Risk, Explained Without the Jargon Two portfolios, identical average returns, wildly different outcomes. The order of the years matters enormously once you start withdrawing — and not at all before. Read more Personal Finance 29 May 2026 31 Avalanche, Snowball, and What Actually Gets Debt Paid One method is mathematically optimal. The other has better completion rates. The research on which wins is more interesting than the argument. Read more