Changes that may affect your pocket from April 1

Mumbai: April 1 is set to bring in both sweet and sour developments for citizens.  And this is not an April fool's story. The sour bits, first. Starting April 1, you will have to shell out more for higher premiums on all non-life insurance policies providing health, auto, and accident coverage. You will be paying more because insurance regulator IRDAI has decided to let insurers revise commissions for insurance agents.

Also, from tomorrow, a junior assessing officer with the income-tax department can take a call on conducting a 'survey' or a 'search' at your premises. His senior, one level up, can provisionally attach the property without waiting for a court order. And now, income-tax officers will be able reopen tax cases from 10 years ago if search operations reveal undisclosed income and assets of over Rs 50 lakh.

If you are dealing in large amounts of cash, it would be better to switch over to digital payments. The Centre’s ban on paying any amount in excess of Rs 2 lakh in cash is coming into play from April 1. You also should no take filing of income-tax returns easy anymore as any form of delay will attract a penalty – anywhere between Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000. And from April, the SBI will start charging its customers more for various services or situations —  including non-maintenance of minimum balance and cash deposits and withdrawals beyond a specified number of transactions per month.

The bank has increased the minimum average balance  requirement. A savings account in a metro needs to maintain a balance of Rs 5,000, urban areas Rs 3,000, semi-urban Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 in rural areas. Any shortfall in average balances will attract a penalty between Rs 50 and Rs 100. Enquiries relating to old records beyond 12 months per item will attract a charge of Rs 200 while Rs 100 would be charged for ATM card or ‘Welcome Kits’ returned by courier due to wrong address. The hike in service charges is also likely to dampen the cheer of SBI associate bank customer, who are celebrating access to the suite of products that their bank's merger with SBI on April 1 could bring in. One among those banks, which will be merged with the SBI on Saturday, is the State Bank of Hyderabad, which served the role of central bank during the Nizam’s rule and which was taken over by the government as an SBI associate bank after Hyderabad's accession to India in 1948.

The Good The list of positive developments is quite small. April 1 will bring in the reduction in income-tax rate. Personal income tax has been slashed to five per cent from 10 per cent on income of Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.

In a relief, there will now be no scrutiny of assessees filing I-T returns for the first time. Individuals having taxable income up to Rs 5 lakh can now just fill up a simple one-page form for filing their tax returns.

Meanwhile, air travellers can expect to breeze through airports because the CISF has decided to scrap the stamping and tagging of hand baggage at seven airports — Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kochi and Ahmedabad.

Speaking of a breeze, the country can also expect better quality air thanks to the Supreme Court’s ban on the sale of all vehicles that are not compatible with the BS-IV emission norms.