10 ways to reduce your family's taxes

Typically, taxpayers tend to focus on ways of reducing only their own tax burden. This is a normal thing to do, but far greater tax savings are possible when the family as a whole is considered as a tax paying unit.
By combining the leeway offered by non-taxpaying members of a family, and judiciously sharing the family income and wealth among all its members, you will find additional ways of reducing your family's tax burden. Here is how:
You may like to explore the following possibilities of sharing of income and wealth within the members of your family in order to lower the overall tax liability.
1)Create an HUF (Hindu Undivided Family) so that the family property and family income is assessed separately from that of the individual members of the family. Tax practitioners can help you in creating an HUF in a perfectly legal manner.
2)Open as many assessment files as possible for the members of your family, including minor children.
3)Keep separate accounts for all the gifts received on birthdays and social functions so that they can form the sources of future income through suitable investments.
4)To avoid problems of the clubbing provisions, you may consider making a gift to your would-be spouse or your son's would-be-spouse. Such pre-marital gifts do not attract the clubbing provisions.
5)If you are the karta of your HUF, you may make gifts within reasonable limits to the members of your family out of the HUF properties and build their separate assets.
6)Since the income-clubbing provisions apply only so long as your children are minors, you may gift them some assets where the income will be received by them only after they attain 'major' status, e.g. 10-year cash certificates, zero-coupon bonds, etc.
7)Some smart assessees do not gift anything to their spouses. Instead, they organise exchange of assets to avoid clubbing provisions, e.g. a husband exchanges his 1,000 Colgate equity shares with the jewellery owned by his wife (since Stridhan is the absolute property of the lady).
8)Since the accretions to income arising on the transfer of asset does not attract the clubbing provisions you can gift any amount which can be invested by your wife or daughter-in-law in 9 per cent fixed deposit, etc. It is only the interest on such amount gifted that is included in the income of the individual. The interest on interest does not attract the clubbing provision.
9)Since a genuine loan of any amount to your spouse or children does not attract the clubbing provisions, loan any amount (create evidence to avoid hassles in future) to children and spouse, which they may invest in income earning assets.
10)You can use the Public Provident Fund scheme for building up capital of your minor children. If you have two children you can open two PPF accounts and deposit Rs 15,000 in each account every year. You will get tax deduction under 80C. Moreover, interest on PPF is totally exempt from income tax. Thus, when children become majors, you would have created capital for them while enjoying the tax benefits in the interim.
An example of family-wide tax planning. Read on