What Is the Indexation Definition? (2024)

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What Is the Indexation Definition? (11)

What Is the Indexation Definition? (12)

What Is the Indexation Definition? (13)

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The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless.The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each.The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand.

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Last editedNov 20202 min read

Indexation helps adjust gain or loss. When applied, it can reduce your business's tax liability or keep your employees' salaries steady by accounting for inflation. Here's an indexation definition, along with some examples of how this method works in real life.

Indexation meaning: what is indexation?

Indexation is a method used by companies or investors to prevent tax loss on investments. It applies to long-term investments like debt funds or other assets, adjusting their purchase price to lower tax liability. As the market experiences fluctuations over time, returns may not be what the investor expects. To compensate, indexation regulates the balance between investment and changes to the cost of living.

Whether used by governments or organizations, indexation connects asset value with price. Payments are adjusted using a price or composite index to keep the taxation value in check. The first step is identifying the price index before linking it to the item or investment value.

Indexation and inflation

The primary reason why indexation is beneficial is to offset inflation. By using indexation, you can adjust an investment's purchase price to reflect the impact of inflation more accurately. This carries over into tax liability because a higher purchase price leads to lower profits and lower taxes. Adjusting for inflation using indexation allows an investor to reduce long-term capital gains, bringing down taxable income.

When it comes to indexation for companies or governments, it's often used to adjust wages. These adjustments reflect a high inflation environment. Without regular wage increases, employees would experience significant wage cuts due to inflation. In addition to inflation, indexation may be applied to account for differences in price across geographic regions or the cost of living.

Life insurance terms offer another real-world indexation example. Insurance companies often include clauses for clients with terms for indexation, promising pay-outs adjusted for inflation.

Indexation benefit on debt funds

Another typical indexation example is debt mutual funds. Capital gain is the return incurred by selling an asset, whether it's tangible or intangible. However, inflation could change the value of this asset over time. To regulate capital gains (and the accompanying income tax), the Cost Inflation Index (CII) is taken into account in some countries. For example, the CII of the sale year is divided by the CII of the purchase year and applied to the purchase cost to determine the actual value of a profit after indexation.

To get maximum indexation benefit on debt funds, extend the holding period. Investors will experience a higher reduction in long-term capital gains tax.

How is indexation applied?

There are a few different ways to apply indexation, depending on the intended purpose.

If the indexation goal is to maintain a stable relative price between at least two goods or services, the process is simple. A business would specify the intended ratio between two prices. If one changes, the other would be adjusted to fall in line with this ratio. Take the example of a bakery. When the wholesale price of flour goes up, it might increase its sales price for loaves of bread to achieve the same profit margin. Therefore, the input and output prices are adjusted to keep the same profit margin.

The second goal of indexation would be to maintain a stable price of a good or service in relation to a currency unit's purchasing power. In this case, the price or asset value is linked to a price level. These price indexes might be published by a government agency or used within a business. When used by a corporation to match employee salaries to inflation, this is called a cost of living increase (COLA). Governments might use indexation in the same way to mitigate the impact of inflation on the recipients of tax benefits or other entitlements.

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What Is the Indexation Definition? (2024)

FAQs

What's the meaning of indexation? ›

Indexation is a system or technique used by organizations or governments to connect prices and asset values. This is done by linking adjustments made to the value of a good, price of a service, or another specified value to a predetermined price or composite index.

What is an example of indexation? ›

Another typical indexation example is debt mutual funds. Capital gain is the return incurred by selling an asset, whether it's tangible or intangible. However, inflation could change the value of this asset over time.

What is mean by indexing? ›

Indexing, broadly, refers to the use of some benchmark indicator or measure as a reference or yardstick. In finance and economics, indexing is used as a statistical measure for tracking economic data such as inflation, unemployment, gross domestic product (GDP) growth, productivity, and market returns.

What is the indexation rule? ›

Indexation allows the investors to estimate the total gain or losses incurred on the investments. It helps in adjusting the purchase price with the inflation level. You can expect higher returns from your portfolio, because of indexation as it increases the purchase price.

How do you use indexation? ›

Indexation is done through a mechanism using a Price Index which is adjusted for inflation. The Price Index adjusts for inflation at the time of purchase of an asset as well as at the time of its sale. It is a well-known fact that inflation erodes an asset's value over a period of time.

What is an example of indexation benefit? ›

Example of Indexation Benefit

So, after adjusting for inflation, the LTCG he generates will be ₹10,080. 20% tax will be applicable on this amount. Without the indexation benefit, the LTCG would've been ₹20,000, leading to a higher tax liability.

What is another word for indexing? ›

to put (someone or something) on a list indexed all the books in the library by category. listing. entering. recording. cataloguing.

How is indexation calculated? ›

The formula for computing the indexation cost is (Index for the year of sale/ Index in the year of acquisition) x cost. How much is the cost of inflation in the year FY 2022-23? The cost of inflation in the year 2022 is 331.

Why is indexation important? ›

Indexation is a standard process used to adjust the value of government programs for changes in the level of prices, living costs or wages. In general, indexation aims to maintain the relative value or level of policy settings over time.

Is indexing good or bad? ›

Adding indexes can be a great way to improve performance, but it's important to be aware that they do come with a cost. Every index takes up additsional storage, can slow down write operations, and can complicate the query optimizer's job, so they aren't always guaranteed to improve performance.

What are the three types of indexing? ›

Indexing is a technique that uses data structures to optimize the searching time of a database query. Index table contains two columns namely Search Key and Data Pointer or Reference. There are three types of indexing namely Ordered, Single-level, and multi-level.

What are the different types of indexation? ›

From a macroeconomics standpoint there are four main categories of indexation: wage indexation, financial instruments rate indexation, tax rate indexation, and.

What is indexation on assets? ›

Indexation is a systematic process that enables individuals to protect their earnings against tax erosion. The process allows individuals to adjust the cost of investment for inflation with the help of a price index. Indexation operates by taking into account the prevalence of inflation in the investment market.

What is indexed cost? ›

Indexed cost can simply mean inflated cost. Indexed cost of acquisition means the cost of acquisition is to be increased by the inflation index factors known as cost inflation index numbers.

How do I calculate indexation? ›

The formula for computing the indexation cost is (Index for the year of sale/ Index in the year of acquisition) x cost. How much is the cost of inflation in the year FY 2022-23? The cost of inflation in the year 2022 is 331.

What is the meaning of indexation in income tax? ›

This reduces the profit gap between purchase price and sale price which in turn reduces the net tax payable as the “tax” is a function of the profit gap. The idea behind this provision is inflation, it reduces asset value over a period of time. This benefit provided by Income Tax laws is called 'Indexation'.

What does it mean to be under indexing? ›

When we say a specific location “over-indexes,” it simply means households in that area watched a particular program at a higher rate when compared to the country overall. And “under-index” would be the opposite – watching at a lower rate when compared to the country overall. 0 out of 0 found this helpful.

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