A widow inherits Rs 3 crore held entirely in one bank's shares. How do you take her through the first steps to diversify, and how does the inherited cost base work?

Get the shares transmitted, review her needs, then sell in three stages and keep about 10%. Selling Rs 2.7 crore over nine months leaves Rs 30 lakh in Ashvattha. Her cost is her husband's, so the gain is about Rs 189 lakh and the illustrative tax about Rs 23.6 lakh, not the Rs 33.8 lakh a zero-cost reading implies. Keeping a slice honours the loyalty without betting her retirement on one bank.

Imagine inheriting a shop and a warehouse full of one product. You would not refuse to sell any of it just because your husband chose it; you would ask whether one product is enough to live on. Holding Rs 3 crore in one bank is an active bet that one company will not stumble, and she is now the one making it, whether she decides to or not. A 40% fall in one bank's shares, which single banks have suffered in bad years, would cost her Rs 120 lakh, most of her investable wealth. Kept at 10%, the same fall costs Rs 12 lakh.

First, transmissionThe process of moving securities from a deceased holder into the name of the nominee or legal heir, usually through the depository participant with a death certificate and a claim form.: the shares must move into her own demat account before anything can be sold, which typically needs a death certificate and a claim form, and more documents if there is no nomination. Second, review: her spending gap, an emergency reserve, how much risk the rest can take, and her husband's purchase records, which set the tax. Only then sell, and sell in stages, so no single day's price decides the outcome and she has time to get used to each step.

In India an inheritance is not taxed when received, but a later sale is. For capital gains, the heir steps into the previous owner's shoes: his cost becomes her cost, and his holding period is added to hers. Selling Rs 270 lakh of the Rs 300 lakh holding carries 90% of his Rs 90 lakh cost, Rs 81 lakh, so the gain is Rs 189 lakh. At the illustrative 12.5% long-term rate, the tax is about Rs 23.62 lakh, roughly 8.8% of what she sells. Confirm the current rate, any annual exemption and the treatment of shares bought before 2018 with her tax adviser before the first sale.

Name it rather than argue with it. Her husband chose the bank for a portfolio that included his salary and his plans; she has a pension and a flat, and this is now her retirement money. Keeping 10%, Rs 30 lakh, lets her stay an Ashvattha shareholder in his memory while making sure one bank's bad year cannot undo her plans. Staging the sales over nine months also gives her room to change pace, and nothing about the plan requires a decision in her first weeks of grief beyond the paperwork.

Say the limit honestly. Selling in stages does not guarantee a better average price than selling at once; it trades a possibly better price for a smaller chance of regret. For a grieving client that trade is usually worth making, and the tax does not change with the pace because the gain is long-term throughout.