The trouble with having too many bank accounts

A depositors' money is almost always safe. So, it makes no sense to have many accounts now

- Vivek Kaul

A round a month back, I was helping a close friend file his father's income tax return. During the process of putting together the information required to file the return, we realized that his father had a bank account which he had possibly forgotten about.

In this gentleman's form 26AS, I came across an entry where a bank had deducted tax at source. Form 26AS provides the details of all the tax deducted at source during the year. Now the tax deducted at source was a substantial amount and this told me that the deposit in the bank must have run into more than a few lakhs of rupees. My friend shared this information with his father. The latter-who prides himself in the way he manages his finances-absolutely refused to believe this. He said that this was simply not possible. So, for a few days nothing happened. Then on being nudged by my friend's mother, his father made a visit to the bank and was told-to his great surprise that yes he had deposits with them.

My friend's father is about to touch 75. The fact that he forgot about a bank account was more a function of having one too many bank accounts-around nine on the last count and across different cities-than his age.