20,000 in tax savings your CA probably won’t tell you

Less than 2 weeks to save tax!

Reading time: 3 minutes

Let’s be honest—no one enjoys paying taxes. And yet, every year, thousands of people miss out on deductions they’re legally entitled to.

Most of us only use the well-known tax-saving options - PF, ELSS, health insurance, etc. But there are some more powerful tax breaks that many people overlook.

For new subscribers, I’m Ankur, a personal finance aficionado trying to simplify the complex world of money management. And today, I write about 5 lesser-known ways to reduce your tax burden to keep more of your money, with you.

1. Health Insurance for Parents - Section 80D

Even if you are not the proposer of the health insurance policy or don’t have a family floater plan, you can pay your parents’ insurance premium and claim it as a tax deduction under Section 80D.

• For parents aged <60 years: You can claim up to ₹25,000

• For parents aged ≥60 years: You can claim up to ₹50,000

2. Health Expenses for Senior Citizen Parents - Section 80D

If your senior citizen parents don’t have a health insurance policy, first, get one for them, please 🙏

But if that’s not possible, you can claim all expenses made on their healthcare—up to ₹50,000 a year, under section 80D.

This is something most people don’t utilise, but make sure YOU do!

However, do note that you can either claim health insurance premium or health expenses, not both. Well, you can’t have your cake and eat it too 😛

3. Additional NPS Deduction – Section 80CCD(1B)

There’s an additional contribution that you can make towards NPS, for ₹50,000 and claim it under section 80CCD (1B).

This is over and above the NPS deduction that you can claim under section 80C.

If you’re okay to keep the money locked in for a longer term, NPS becomes a good option.

There are, however, other aspects to investing in NPS over the long term, but that’s for another post.

4. Preventive Health Check-ups

Any money spent towards undergoing preventive health check-ups or diagnostic tests (up to Rs. 5,000) can be claimed as a tax deduction.

This can be money spent on health check-ups for yourself or for your family (spouse, children, parents).

However, this will fall under the overall limit of 80D deduction (Rs. 25,000/50,000).

(The way I see it, I get a default 30% discount on health check-ups thanks to the tax saved 😄)

5. Critical illness Rider with Term Insurance

This is something most people never claim.

Term insurance premiums are commonly claimed under Section 80C, but if you have a critical illness rider along with your term insurance, the additional premium paid for it should be claimed under Section 80D.

Since 80C deductions get exhausted quickly and 80D mostly has enough room, using 80D for critical illness riders is a smart way to optimise your tax savings.

---

Well, that’s 5 tips for you to get better at money management today. Hope you found some of them useful. Do reply to this email and let me know your feedback!

And now, some exciting news!

Well, we all know that AI is here to stay, and it’s evolving faster than anything else I’ve seen.

But just using AI tools is basic - AI is beyond ChatGPT and Claude. And understanding those softer nuances is what will give an edge over your peers - Better roles, higher salaries and faster growth.

But there’s a problem.

If you’re not an engineer, it’s difficult to go deeper into AI - How agents work, what is RAG, how do you train an AI model with your own data for best results, how do you use multiple tools to reduce output time from days to seconds..there’s a lot of stuff going on!

And it’s soon going to become a requirement for high-paying jobs.

So, I’ve launched LazyAI, a newsletter that simplifies AI and helps people understand it in depth, so that you can embrace it, play with it and use it for career growth. If you liked this email (and like this finance newsletter in general), you’ll love LazyAI. I’m using the same concept - byte-sized, 5 minute articles to help you understand complex jargon in AI - while I learn it myself 🙂

Let’s do this journey together! The first post goes out today - Subscribe here