The Indian household money calendar for a financial year

The Indian household money calendar has four fixed tax dates, one filing date and a handful of monthly habits. Advance tax is due on 15 June (15%), 15 September (45%), 15 December (75%) and 15 March (100%), the ITR for most individuals is due on 31 July, and the financial year closes on 31 March. Around those, every month brings EMIs, SIPs and a PPF deposit that should land by the 5th.

This post lays out the whole year, April to March, in one place. It covers the dates the government sets and the dates your own family sets, and it shows how the two kinds stack up in a real month.

What does the financial year look like, month by month?

The table below lists the fixed dates and the regular household items for each month. The "household" column is an example pattern. Your own family will have different EMIs, premiums and school fees.

Dates and rules change from time to time, and due dates are sometimes extended. Check the current year's dates on the Income Tax Department site before you rely on them.

How do the advance tax dates work?

Advance tax is income tax paid during the year, not after it. It matters most to people with income that has no tax deducted at source: rent, interest, gains on funds or shares, freelance fees or a business. Salaried people whose employer deducts enough TDS often owe little or none, but a large gain on funds or shares, or large interest income, can change that.

The four percentages are cumulative. By 15 June, 15% of the year's expected advance tax is due. By 15 September the total paid should reach 45%. By 15 December it should reach 75%, and by 15 March it should reach the full amount.

What does that look like in rupees?

Take an illustrative family, Asha and Ravi Rao in Pune. Say they expect ₹1,20,000 of advance tax for the year. The schedule works out like this:

1. By 15 June: 15% of ₹1,20,000, which is ₹18,000 paid in total.
2. By 15 September: 45%, which is ₹54,000 in total, so ₹36,000 more.
3. By 15 December: 75%, which is ₹90,000 in total, so ₹36,000 more.
4. By 15 March: 100%, which is ₹1,20,000 in total, so the last ₹30,000.

The trap is that the expected tax moves during the year. If Ravi redeems some fund units in November and books a gain, the December and March figures go up. The December payment has to match the year as it looks in December, not as it looked in June. Missing a payment, or paying too little, can attract interest, so it pays to recheck the figure before each date.

Why is 31 July the date most families remember?

The ITR for the previous financial year is due on 31 July for most individuals who do not need a tax audit. That covers most salaried people, pensioners and people with income from rent, interest or funds.

The work starts earlier than the deadline. You need salary certificates, interest certificates from banks, gains statements from fund houses or brokers, and proof of any deductions you plan to claim. Families who leave this to the last week of July tend to find one document missing, usually a gains statement or an interest certificate from a bank deposit nobody remembers opening.

A practical pattern is to treat June as the month to collect papers and July as the month to file. The first advance tax payment in mid-June is a sign that the new FY is under way.

Why does the 5th of the month keep coming up?

The 5th is the PPF date. PPF interest for each month is worked out on the lowest amount in the PPF between the close of the 5th day and the end of that month. Money that reaches the PPF on or before the 5th counts for the whole month. Money that arrives on the 6th gets no interest for that month.

If your family puts money into PPF monthly, the deposit belongs in the first few days of the month, not on salary day if salary arrives later. If you deposit once a year, a deposit in early April counts for all twelve months of the financial year. We explain the arithmetic in PPF and the 5th.

What happens on 31 March?

31 March is the last day of the financial year. Anything that has to count for this year must land by then: the year's PPF deposits, tax-saving funds and some insurance premiums you plan to claim. A PPF also needs a minimum deposit in each financial year to stay active, so a PPF nobody has touched since April needs attention before March ends.

March is crowded. The final advance tax payment is due on 15 March, salaries and EMIs run as usual, and families often discover a deduction they meant to use. A January check of the year's totals gives you two months of room instead of two weeks.

Which monthly dates does a family set for itself?

The government sets a handful of dates. Your own household sets many more, and these are the ones that cause most of the stress.

EMIs

A home loan, a car loan or a personal loan debits a fixed amount on a fixed date. The bank does not care whether salary arrived late. A bounced EMI costs a fee and can show up on a credit report, so the date matters as much as the amount. If the EMI is paid from an SWP, the SWP money has to settle first. We cover that timing in how to time an SWP before an EMI, and the long view of a loan in tracking an EMI for its full tenure.

SIPs

Each SIP debits on its own date. A family with six or seven SIPs across two people and three fund houses can have money leaving on five different days of the month. Each one is small, but together they decide how much is left in the bank on EMI day. See tracking every SIP in one place.

Premiums, fees and rent

Insurance premiums are often yearly or half-yearly, so they arrive as a surprise in a month that looked normal. School fees can be quarterly. Rent is monthly, and a rent you receive is just as worth tracking as a rent you pay. These irregular items are the ones a calendar helps with most, because nobody remembers a date that only comes once a year.

How do the dates stack up in a single month?

Look at December for the Rao family, with illustrative dates:

1. 1 December: SWP from a liquid fund to cover the home-loan EMI.
2. 5 December: the PPF deposit in Meera's name, and the home-loan EMI.
3. 10 December: two SIPs debit.
4. 15 December: third advance tax payment, 75% cumulative.
5. 20 December: Ravi's health insurance premium, paid once a year.
6. 25 December: one more SIP.

None of these is hard on its own. The difficulty is that six items fall across two people and four institutions, and no single bank app or fund statement shows them together. The one item that slips is usually the yearly one, the premium in this example, because there was no notification for it last month or the month before.

How should a family keep the calendar?

The calendar works best when it is shared and written down once. A few rules help:

1. Put every recurring item in one list with its amount, its date and its pattern: monthly, yearly, every three months or a fixed list of dates.
2. Note who pays it. In a two-income family, the person who set up a SIP is often not the person who checks the bank on debit day.
3. For anything that has to happen before something else, such as an SWP before an EMI, set its notification a few days early.
4. Mark each item done when it is done, so the other person does not check it again.
5. Recheck the expected advance tax before each of the four dates.

A paper calendar on the fridge works until one person is travelling. A shared note works until it goes stale. What a family needs is one plan that both people see on their own phone, with a notification on the day.

How Kosh helps

Kosh keeps one shared plan for your Household on every Member's iPhone. You add each EMI, SIP, SWP, premium, PPF deposit or rent once with its schedule, whether that is monthly, yearly, every few months or a list of dates, and every Member with notifications on gets a notification on the due date. A lead time lets an item like an SWP notify a few days before the EMI it pays for. When anyone ticks an item done, the other phone shows it. Kosh tracks and warns; you decide.

Kosh is in private testing on iPhone and free during testing. Learn more at ourkosh.com.