PPF (Public Provident fund) is a long term saving scheme introduced by government of India, which helps save taxes as well as create retirement corpus of Indian citizens. Savings made under PPF account are tax deductible under section 80 C.
All PPF deposits are managed through PPF accounts which you can open in public or private banks as well as post offices. The interest rate on these accounts are revised every quarter by a central agency. Current ongoing interest rates are 8.1 %.
Key Features of PPF Account
Contents
- Interest rate : 1% compounded annually
- Scheme Duration : 15 years
- Minimum deposit amount (per year) : 500
- Maximum deposit amount (per year) : 1,50,000
- Number of installments every year : 1 (Min) to 12 (Max)
- Number of accounts individual can open : Only One
- Lock-in period : 15 years (partial withdrawals can be made from the sixth year)
- Extension of PPF Account : After the maturity period (15 years), it can be extended for a period of 5 years
- Tax savings (contribution) : under section 80C (upto 1.5 L)
Key benefits of PPF Accounts
- Higher interest rates than existing long term investment options like fixed deposits etc. Current interest rate is around 8.1 %
- Tax free returns – Interest earned on PPF accounts is tax free, even the deposit amount is tax deductible from your income upto a maximum of 1.5 lacs per annum.
- Low risk:- Since the scheme is backed by government of India risk is very low
- Easy to open and operate: PPF accounts can be opened in most of the public sector banks , post office and select private sector banks, they are easy to open and operate.
PPF Calculator
A PPF calculator is a free tool which is available for users to understand how their PPF corpus will grow with time. You can use PPF calculator to look up following information
- Calculate Interest and maturity amount for your PPF contributions
- Look at yearly balance of your PPF account
- Understand how much money you will have at the end of your tenure
- Project funds at maturity so that you can plan your investments accordingly.
- Understand how your maturity amount will change with different yearly/monthly contributions
In conjunction with bodhik.com we have created a simple PPF calculator which can use to understand your PPF maturity amount and interest earned. No need to download clumsy excel files, just put in your information and we will calculate the maturity amount and Interest earned for you.
Raj Kumar is a qualified business/finance writer expert in investment, debt, credit cards, Passive income, financial updates. He advises in his blog finance clap.
