The Best of Mint Money, 2023

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Mint collection puts together our in-depth stories on a range of personal finance topics, including investing ideas, mutual funds, early retirement, how to spot risks, finfluencers and more. What's your dream salary? For many (including this author), ₹1 crore seems like a nice, round sum. But my dreams are someone else's reality: Shipra Singh spoke to high earners, almost all of whom said they would like to earn more.

You can deduce your own conclusions after reading this piece. Whatever your salary might be, nobody likes to pay taxes on it. If you're negotiating a new contract, Aprajita Sharma's story is a timely one on how to structure your components in a way that will minimize your tax obligations.

Everyone wants 10x results. Few have achieved it like Radhika Gupta, CEO of Edelweiss Asset Management. Neil Borate speaks to Gupta on her journey as an executive, and details how she got Edelweiss some stellar results.

Investors may not be able to stay ahead of the market, but they definitely are ahead of the authorities. Neil Borate and Satya Sontanam write about an incident where the central government had plugged a tax loophole — only for investors to find another way around it. Both authors do a great job in explaining a complicated financial instrument, and making the reader understand how investors outsmarted their way to better tax savings.

Everyone loves doling out investment advice. Only a few do it as a profession — you need to be registered with the markets regulator. But over the years, stricter rules and guidlines issued by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has made life difficult for these registered investment advisors.