0GOLDEN RULES:
- Understand the subject at Macro level before going into micro level.
Illustration : Break the word INCOME TAX into two components, INCOME and TAX. Analyse them separately before connecting. The word INCOME reminds us the basic question WHO WILL PAY? In other words what will be the SOURCES of Income.
Now think about sources such as Job, business, interest, sale of asset, rent etc. Each sources could be tagged with HEADS OF INCOME, such as Income from House property, Income from Salary, Income from Business and Profession etc. While computing income under relevant head, one could notice there may be negative income (loss) under one head and the same could be set off with positive income in other head ( e.g. loss under the head House Property could be set off with Income under the head Business Profession).
There after adding all the income as derived under different Heads of Income one can arrive at GROSS TOTAL INCOME.
Some investment out of such income is eligible for deduction. Deduct the same from GROSS TOTAL INCOME to arrive at TAXABLE INCOME.
Apply tax law on such TAXABLE INCOME to ascertain TAX LIABILITY. After arriving the TAX LIABILITY, be familiar with different modes of discharging the liability such as TDS, ADVANCE TAX, SELF ASSESSMENT TAX. After discharge of tax liability, prepare tax return and upload the same.
- Before going into micro, break the entire syllabus into following modules keeping in mind the macro objectives
- a) Modules covering pre assessment events
- b) Modules covering post assessment events.
- Amendments and case laws needs to be understand with the help of flow chart and connect the same with the modules only then you will find how interesting subject tax is.
4) Articulation of answer is key to success. More you write more your quality will improve. To bench mark your performance, you need to compare the answer written by you with the suggested answer as published by Institute (Give up the habits of reading suggested answer without writing the test).
5) Revision on regular basis is the best memorisation technique. Make a habit not to start a topic without revising the old one. Initially it will irritate you but believe me after quite some time it will work as miracle and due to the effect of learning curve you may not require to spend much time on revision. Syllabus of TAX (Both Direct and Indirect) is ocean and only this technique will help you to cross the ocean smoothly.
6) Last but not the least is time management. Out of 180 minutes keep aside 20 minutes for reading and revising the papers, so divide 100 marks in 160 minutes, it implies 1.6 marks per minute. Spend 20% time for reading the question (most of the students write wrong answer as they fail to understand the question), 10% time for developing strategy to write answer, 60% time for actual writing and 10%for revision (This is very important phase, 80% students detect their mistakes in this phase). This you cannot do in the exam hall unless you do the same practice in each mock test.
