Express Money: Ask Us

If you gift money to your wife to buy shares and she invests it,the capital gain from the investment will be clubbed with your income and you will have to pay tax on it. However,you will not have to pay tax when you transfer/gift shares to your wife. The shares can be transferred from your demat account to your wife’s demat account. You should prepare a gift deed,listing the shares and their present value. If your wife sells these shares and earns capital gains,the profit will be treated as your income and you will be eligible to pay capital gain tax.

I have an insurance policy. Is there any method to check its worth so that I can know when to discontinue the policy?

— Pritam Lal Singh,Delhi

Check your policy to determine whether it is a term life insurance,endowment plan or a unit-linked plan. The annual statements will show the cash value and the surrender value of the policy. Also find out the number of premiums already paid. If it is an endowment or a unit-linked plan,there may be some value left after deduction of charges for the interim period. Decide on that basis whether you want to surrender it,revive it or else let it be in the same mode till maturity.

SBI Credit Card is offering me an encash loan of Rs 2 lakh at 8.9 per cent. When I did some analysis I found it is equal to taking a personal loan of Rs 2 lakh at 17.5 per cent. Which one do I take? The credit card loan or the personal loan?

— Sourabh Sen Gupta,Kolkata

The loan on credit card is similar to personal loan. Here,you can take loan within the credit limit of your credit card,on the mutually decided loan tenure. To compare between the credit card loan and personal loan,you need to check on the interest rate and tenure of both the loans. If the interest rate of 8.9 per cent is the annual interest,it will be more beneficial for you to take credit card loan. The figure 8.9 per cent seems to be incorrect. If it is monthly or quarterly basis,we are talking about somewhere 35.6 per cent or 106.8 per cent interest rate on yearly basis,which is much more as compared to the market rate. However,it seems too less for annual basis. So we recommend you to find out the same from your credit card issuer..

—The expert is Business Head,Rupeetalk.com

For your personal finance queries please email at,expressmoney@expressindia.com