As a senior citizen, you are eligible to submit form 15H if the tax on your estimated total income for that year is nil. Since you are paying advance tax, it is clear that the tax on your total income is not nil. Hence, you are not eligible to submit form 15H. Incidentally, senior citizens are not required to pay advance tax. But that does not mean you can submit incorrect form 15H. You also have the option to get a certificate for deduction of tax at a lower rate but that is a time-consuming and administratively inconvenient procedure. An alternative suggestion is to file your tax returns electronically. Lately, small value refunds for returns filed electronically are received pretty quickly.
Any taxable income derived from the originally gifted amount will continue to be clubbed in your hands. It is not clear how much of the Rs 28,00,000 maturity value is the amount contributed by you and how much is on account of interest. Assuming that Rs 8 lakh was the original amount contributed by you and the balance amount is PPF interest, when you reinvest the maturity proceeds the interest on this amount (Rs 8,00,000) will be clubbed in your hands. If you wish to save tax on this amount, you can invest this in tax-free bonds.
Harsh Roongta is a chartered accountant and Sebi-registered investment expert. Send your queries – be it on mutual funds, tax, loans or savings – to personalfinance@dnaindia.net or tweet them to @AskHarshdna'