When manufacturing businesses gather to talk about money, the conversation rarely stays confined to profit margins and production costs. It inevitably turns to a bigger question: what happens to everything that has been built once the builder is no longer around to manage it? That question sat at the heart of a recent financial awareness session organised by Ashutosh Financial Services at Vatva GIDC in Ahmedabad, one of the many initiatives the firm runs in the belief that sound financial decisions are only possible when people first understand the choices in front of them.
The session, titled “Navigating Investments, Taxation and Wills,” was held on July 9, 2025, for members of the Vatva GIDC Association, a community of industrial and business owners. CA CFP Rajit Kothari led the discussion, drawing on his experience advising business families to connect three subjects that are usually treated separately but rarely are, in practice: where to put money, how to keep more of what it earns, and what happens to it after the owner is gone.
Kothari opened with a point that tends to surprise people who consider fixed deposits the safest place for their savings. A typical bank FD earning around 7% interest, once reduced by income tax at the highest slab of 30% or more, leaves a net return of under 5%. With inflation in India running at roughly the same level, the real, inflation-adjusted return on that “safe” deposit is close to zero. This isn’t an argument against safety, but a reminder that safety and stagnation aren’t the same thing. He pointed to alternatives that preserve a similar risk profile while offering better post-tax outcomes, including secured corporate fixed deposits, non-convertible debentures issued by rated companies, and select state government bonds, several of which were offering yields between 8.7% and 9.3%. He also introduced arbitrage mutual funds, an instrument that behaves like a fixed-income product but is taxed under equity rules, making it a useful middle ground for conservative investors looking to improve after-tax returns without taking on equity-level risk.
From there, the discussion moved into longer-horizon planning tools, including guaranteed income and pension plans. These involve a fixed premium commitment for a defined number of years, in exchange for monthly income that can stretch across three or four decades, regardless of what happens to interest rates or the stock market in the meantime. Kothari explained that these plans also carry a death benefit and, when annual premiums stay within Rs. 5 lakh per PAN, the maturity proceeds are entirely tax-free, a detail that matters for anyone doing long-term retirement math.
Equity investing received substantial attention too, with an emphasis on the mutual fund route being the most accessible way for individuals to participate in the Indian equity market. Rather than picking funds at random, Kothari stressed that portfolios should be built around an individual’s financial profile and risk appetite, spread thoughtfully across large-cap, flexi-cap, mid-cap, small-cap and value-oriented categories, and reviewed against benchmarks and fund manager track records over time. For those with larger corpora, he also touched on Portfolio Management Services, which offer more concentrated, personalised portfolios starting at Rs. 50 lakh, and Alternative Investment Funds, structured vehicles typically requiring a minimum commitment of Rs. 1 crore over a five-to-seven-year horizon, often used to access opportunities in unlisted companies. Direct investment in unlisted shares and U.S. equities, including well-known global companies, were presented as ways to diversify further, geographically and by asset type, while remaining compliant with Indian regulations.
Tax planning formed the session’s next major thread. Kothari discussed how income-splitting strategies, placing fixed-income investments in the names of family members such as a spouse, children, or an HUF, can help a family reduce its overall tax burden legitimately, since each entity is taxed at its own slab rate. He also touched on the shift toward faceless, PAN-linked tax administration in India, which has removed much of the discretion and personal interaction that once characterised dealings with tax authorities.
The final part of the session addressed succession planning. Kothari clarified a common misunderstanding: a nominee on a bank account or investment is merely a custodian, not the legal owner. Ownership passes according to the law of succession, either as directed by a valid will or, in its absence, under the Hindu Succession Act. He walked through what makes a will legally sound, and explained how family trusts can be used alongside a will to protect assets from creditor claims, avoid disputes among heirs, and, particularly for NRI families, achieve better tax efficiency around inheritance.
Sessions like this reflect a simple conviction that runs through much of Ashutosh Financial Services’ work: financial wellbeing depends less on chasing the highest return and more on understanding the full picture, taxation, protection, and succession, alongside investment choice. As the audience at Vatva GIDC discovered, the conversations that matter most are often the ones people put off the longest.
