Finance Buddy

This Diwali season brought an added cheer for thousands of taxpayers, with income-tax refunds flowing into bank accounts across the country, providing a boost to household and businesses at a time when spending is high. “The Income Tax Department has shown a noticeably proactive approach in processing refunds considering the Diwali festive season, and quite a few of our clients have received their amounts during the Diwali period itself. In fact, several refunds credited over the past week have been substantial, many exceeding Rs 50,000 and even going well beyond that in some cases,” Himank Singla, founding partner at SBHS & Associates, said. According to Singla, nearly half of eligible taxpayers in his client base have received their refunds. “If I were to estimate, around 40–50 percent of the clients who were eligible for refunds have received the amount, while the remaining are in various stages of processing,” he added. The timing coincided with the festival season bringing a...

A historic surge in central bank gold buying —over 316,000 kg in the past year—may be less about profit and more a global red alert, warns Sujit Bangar, founder of taxbuddy.com. In a widely shared LinkedIn post, Bangar calls the 63% jump in gold prices not a rally, but a warning: global financial trust is cracking. “This isn’t a mere rally. It’s a warning signal,” Bangar wrote, pointing to an unprecedented pace of gold accumulation that echoes past crisis markers like the 2008 financial collapse and COVID-19. Traditionally, investors turn to the U.S. dollar and Treasuries during volatility. But Bangar argues the game has shifted. “Fear no longer means dollar safety—it means buying gold,” he said, noting the dollar’s steepest six-month fall in 50 years and rising fears over fiat currencies. At the heart of this shift is what he calls “The Debasement Trade”—a flight from assets backed by governments to those free from counterparty risk. “Gold doesn’t default. It doesn’t print. It doesn...