Origin of the word Budget; It actually means a bag

The origin of our word 'budget' is the Latin bulga,meaning a little pouch or knapsack. The word turned up in English in the fifteenth century, having travelled via the French bougette, a diminutive form of bouge, “leather bag”. Its first meaning in English indeed was “pouch, wallet, bag”, and followed its French original in usually implying something made of leather.

By the end of the sixteenth century, the word could refer to the contents of one’s budget as well as to the container itself. People frequently used this in the figurative sense of a bundle of news, or of a long letter full of news, and the word formed part of the name of several defunct British newspapers, such as the Pall Mall Budget.

The connection with finance appeared first only in 1733, as the result of a scurrilous pamphlet entitled The Budget Opened, an attack directed at Sir Robert Walpole, The allusion was that the government minister responsible for financial affairs opened his budget, or wallet, to reveal his proposals. It probably also echoed the idiom to open one’s budget, “to speak one’s mind”, which was current then and continued to be so down into Victorian times. By the 1760s, it was clearly well established, and has been the standard term ever since. But it was only in the 1880s that it began to be used as a verb in the sense of planning one’s expenditure, and the attributive meaning of “inexpensive; suitable for someone of limited means” is first recorded only in 1958.

No Entry load for MF from 1st August 2009

As was expected after the SEBI's announcement about abolishing entry load on investments in Equity diversified Mutual Funds. The final effective date is 1st August 2009.

Benefits
1) No more entry load of 2.25% which was being charged earlier. Hence the investor's invested amount will be more.
2) No incentives for churning of Mutual Funds investments which is good for the investor.
3) Investor can now decide how much he wants to pay to the advisor for his service and hence can expect better and improve service from the advisors.

Cons
1) The major drawback for this is that now MF advisors will not be motivated to sell MF products and hence they will stop selling MF and rather now will sell ULIP which are sold as investment cum insurance products and where commission for Advisors is very high.
Hence Most small investors would have to be vary of getting into ULIP products.
Ultimately this is good deciscion for the educated and financialy savy people but a very decscion for the most of the common man who dont understand much about financial products. Now Mis-selling of ULIP will be very high.
2) Exit load might be increased by MF Houses

for readers of this blog simple piece of advise.
STAY AWAY FROM ULIPs. Keep investments and insurance seperate.

Top performing Mutual Fund for the month of June 2009

Top performing ELSS Mutual fund for the month of June 2009
1) SBI Tax Advantage Sr-1
2) Escorts Tax Plan
3) HDFC Long Term Advantage
4) Fortis Tax Advantage
5) HDFC Tax Saver

Top Performing Diversified Equity Mutual Fund June 2009
1) IDFC Small and Midcap Fund
2) Tata Capital Builder Fund
3) HSBC Emerging Markets Fund
4) JM Core 11 Fund
5) Tata Indo - Global Infra

Dividends declared by many funds recently

Following is the list of dividends declared by Mutual fund houses in the month of June.
ICICI Pru Power (D) - 26/06/09 - 1.000
Tata Equity Opp. Fund (D) - 26/06/09 - 1.500
Franklin India Prima Fund (D) - 24/06/09 - 6.000
Birla SL Basic Industries (D) - 23/06/09 - 5.000
Birla SL Infrastructure -A (D) - 23/06/09 - 1.000
DSP-BR India T.I.G.E.R-RP(D)- 19/06/09 - 2.000
ICICI Pru Discovery Fund (D) - 19/06/09 - 1.200
ICICI Pru Growth (D) - 19/06/09 - 1.000
Principal Emerging Bluechip(D)-19/06/09 - 4.000
Sundaram Capex Oppor. (D) - 19/06/09 - 2.000
UTI Master Value Fund (D) - 15/06/09 - 2.000
UTI Mid Cap (D) - 15/06/09 - 2.000
UTI Transport & Logistics (D)- 15/06/09 - 2.000
Sundaram Fin-Ser. OppRP(D)- 12/06/09 - 1.000
Birla SL Dividend Yield (D) - 10/06/09 - 1.000
IDFC Imperial Equity - A (D)- 08/06/09 - 1.200
UTI Wealth Builder Fund (D) -08/06/09 - 0.800
Sundaram MediaOpp-RP (D) -05/06/09 - 1.000
Bharti AXA Tax Advt-Eco(D)-04/06/09 - 1.000
Bharti AXA Tax Advtg-RP(D)-04/06/09 - 1.000

E-filing IT returns for AY-2009-10 ;Address for submission of ITR-V

E-Filing for AY 2009-10 has been enabled for all ITR forms.

Please furnish the Form ITR-V to the Income-tax Department by mailing it to
Income Tax Department ,
CPC, Post Box No - 1,
Electronic City Post Office,
Bangalore - 560100,
Karnataka

within thirty days after the date of transmitting the data electronically. No Form ITR-V shall be received in any other office of the Income-tax Department or in any other manner.

Income Tax Refund Status

Following is the link to check the refund status of your Income Tax Refund. You simply have to enter your PAN CARD Number.
https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/oltas/refundstatuslogin.html

Assessing Current Wealth of an Individual

How to assess one's current Net worth ?
Net worth = Items of Value(Assets) - Amounts Owed(Liabilities)

The process to find out ones Net worth is first List out all the assets and the most liquid at the top (cash , bank accounts,FD, Mutual Funds) and then list out all the liabilities(credit card, bills outstanding, Taxes etc).


Liquidity is a measure of the ease with which an asset can be converted into cash or cash equivalents. The easier an asset is to convert into cash, the more liquid it is. Cash is the most Liquid asset.
Following is the table for your reference

Assets
Cash
Bank Accounts
Fixed Deposits
Cash surrender value of LIC
Cash surrender value of Annuities
Market value of Investments
Mutual Funds
Stocks
Bonds
Others
Market Value of House/real Estate
Investment Property
Vehicles
HouseHold Furniture/Appliances
Jewelry/precious metals
Collectibles
Loan Receivables
Others
Total Assets

Liabilities
Credit Card Balances
Bills Outstanding
Outstanding Loan Balances
Taxes Due
Others
Total Liabilities
Net Worth (Assets - Liabilites)

Determining your Net worth is the first step in financial planning and assessing your financial wealth. Net worth is a tool for comparing the changes in your financial position over a period of time. An increase in net worth over a period of time is a favourable trend and a decrease in net worth is a deduction in wealth.
The aim should always be to increase Net Worth

• Appreciating Assets
• Reducing Liabilities
• Increasing Income
• Reducing the expenses

The relationship between current liquid assets and current liabilities indicates relative ease or difficulty in paying upcoming debts. This evaluation ratio is the current ratio and is determined as follows

Current Ratio = Current Assets / Current Liabilities

The other important ratio is debt ratio

Debt Ratio = Total Liabilities / Net Worth