has made government schemes attractive if you are looking to invest in fixed income options the national savings certificates and kisan vikas patras are your best bets they are offering 79 and 76 respectively but this may soon change interest rates of small savings schemes are linked to government bond yields bond yields have fallen by almost 40 basis points in the past three months with the 10year bond yield averaging 63 since january 1 this suggests that the interest rates of small savings schemes may be cut by 1520 basis points from 1 april while investors in the ppf and the sukanya samriddhi yojana will not be able to escape the cut the change will not affect nscs and kvps bought before 31 march book profitsmarkets are down but many investors are sitting on longterm capital gains though longterm capital gains above 1 lakh in a financial year are now taxable you can reset the buying price by following a simple strategy sell your stocks and funds before march 31 and then buy them back you will make capital gains but the buying price of the shares will be reset some may call this timing the market and will also cost you 1 by way of brokerage paid on the transactions but its a smart move that can reduce your future tax by harvesting the taxfree gains of up to 1 lakh a year catch the pmvvythe pradhan mantri vaya vandana yojana pmvvy is available only till march 31 unlike other annuity schemes that offer pension for life this scheme is for 10 years and gives assured returns to senior citizens if the pensioner survives till the end of the policy term the principal is returned to him if he dies during the term the amount is given to his nominee experts say the pmvvy is the second best option for senior citizens after the senior citizens saving scheme senior citizens who have exhausted their 15 lakh limit in the scss should consider putting money in this scheme the scheme does not offer tax deduction under section 80c and the pension is also taxable but it is exempted from the gst applicable on amounts invested in annuities link pan to aadhaaryour pan may become inoperative if it is not linked to your aadhaar by march 31 besides a penalty of 10000 can be slapped on those who dont link their pan to the aadhaar linking the two is not difficult and can be done via sms the taxpayer has to sms his 12digitaadhaar number and his 10digit pan number to the department it can also be done online by logging on to incometaxindiafilinggovin lock into fmps fundsfixed maturity plans fmps of mutual funds are closedended debt schemes with a fixed maturity date gains from fmps held for more than three years are treated as longterm capital gains and taxed at 20 after indexation the indexation benefit is enhanced if the holding period runs across more than three financial years