I was giving my regular financial advice to a friend of mine when I happened to ask him under whose name does he invest?
and to my surprise he said in the name of the sole Bread-Winner.
So I inquired around and asked other folks who are married to a housemaker and to my surprise I found very few of them actually did a regular investment in the spouses name. I wonder why?
The reason why I would invest in my spouse’s name would be:
1) Indian marriages are more or less stable and wives are more tolerant… so the risk is low.
2) In case of an premature demise, all unsecured loans would be settled against the assets owned by the male member… the spouse’s money cannot be touched. That way you can secure a decent living for your family.
3) Over time your investments are going to grow by leaps and bounds.
eg: the rent from a small 800sqfeet apartment can easily by 12k pm which is a salary in itself.
So by dividing your income over different members of the households you can save a lot on tax, and also prevent yourself hitting the highest IT Bracket and surcharges. Personal tax exemption limit enjoyed by a male taxpayer is Rs 1.10 lakh (Rs 110,000), while it is Rs 1.45 lakh (145,000) in the case of women taxpayers.
4) As per the IT Law, you can claim IT rebate only on 2 houses during your entire lifetime. However if your housewife is also an IT payer (because of rental, interest, stock market income) you can claim it double the number of times.
