Financial year-end closing: Beware the Ides of March 31

It's that time of the year when the CFO, CEO, CXO, CDO, C3PO send out missives to their departments like King’s Landing to the various houses of Westeros demanding they bend the knee and surrender the data by March 31. Any rebellions will be put down by the dragons of audit. (Image: Kal242382 via Wikimedia Commons 4.0)

Barely have I recovered from the madness of new year that we are suddenly confronted with another new year in the form of FY closing. One presumes the FY here stands for any manager’s response to an employee asking for leave on March 31.  It's really entertaining how worked up everyone becomes around this time. Perhaps it makes sense that financial year end closing and board examinations happen around the same time. So both parents and children are in a race to finish first before they finish each other. It is that time of the year when you suddenly find yourself confronted with an alphabet soup of tax exemptions. 80C, 80D, 80DD, 80U, UB40, U2.

And you suddenly discover there is something called medical reimbursement. So you chase that chemist uncle to give you a copy of that bill from six months ago in which you ordered Nutella, Hershey’s Syrup, Magnum ice-cream and 1 strip of cholesterol busters. Chartered accountants suddenly become even more valuable than IPL purchases. To be fair, their fee is justified given that they have to deal with queries like: “My wife says she has Instagram reel syndrome. Can we get deduction under 80 DDB for mental illness?”

And you are bombarded with every insane financial products marketer with “SAVE TAX BEFORE 31st MARCH EVEN IF YOU HAVE NO INCOME. HAHA!!” And you find you have to make Rs 2 lakh investments to save Rs 222 of tax.  And this is right after you emptied your bank account to purchase that new flat TV just before your woke child broke it saying a flat TV is offensive to flat earthers. You consider exchanging your child for the investment funds in the CDS (Child Default Swap) market.

Obviously you have to make the time to do this at exactly the same time your boss is after your life to submit your year-end closing numbers. And your wife calls you in office to tell you that she has bought the Rs 5 lakh tax saving Super ULIP that her mom’s third cousin twice removed sold to her. “It pays 1000% dividend and you save 300% tax!” she gushes. Uncle neglects to mention his 300% trailing commission from the returns.

Meanwhile you chase your own subordinates who chase their own underlings who chase their own tails in search of the elusive numbers. The CFO, CEO, CXO, CDO, C3PO send out missives to their departments like King’s Landing to the various houses of Westeros demanding they bend the knee and surrender the data by March 31. Any rebellions will be put down by the dragons of audit.

It doesn’t matter if the data is accurate or even coherent. All that matters is that the numbers be approved so the problem can be pushed to the next year. And hope any gaps in the numbers will be made up by the wonderful formatting of the PPT to hypnotize equity analysts.

Many banks even slow down on giving out loans towards the end of the FY*** so that their books align even if their morals don’t. But the way some of the world's banks are being “run”, one never knows which FY of a bank’s financials could be its last. As it says one last FY to all its investors and depositors.

So this March 31, I hope you hit all your targets or else your targets will start hitting you. But laughter offers the best tax saving on this taxing life. So invest in Funnycontrol by liking, sharing and commenting on this article to get deduction under section 80HEEHEE.