In the past couple of months the stock markets have been on a rollercoaster ride. If they were up by a whopping 400 points on a given day, the very next day they would tank by an equally whopping 600 points.

While retail investors who invested directly into the equity markets must have burnt their fingers in such volatility, those who took the mutual fund route seem to have been rather untouched.

This can be vouched from the list of top 10 tax saving mutual funds that not only helped you earn as much as a 60 per cent return in the last one year but also helped you to save taxes.

According to Value Research, a premier mutual fund research company, investing in certain ELSS funds would have seen the value of your money grow by more than 50 per cent in the last one year.

The worst performer in this top 10 list, ABN AMRO Tax Advantage, gave a decent return of 36.93 per cent. Simply put, a sum of Rs 10,000 invested in this scheme on September 7, 2006 would have returned Rs 13,693 by September 7, 2007.

Principal Personal Tax Saver, the best performer fund in this top 10 list, gave a superb return of 66.73 per cent as on September 7, 2007. Rs 10,000 invested in this fund on September 7, 2006 would have returned Rs 16,673 by September 7, 2007.

This table shows the top 10 tax saving mutual funds:

Open Ended - Equity: Tax Planning (one year return as on September 07, 2007)
Fund	Navs as on Sept 07, 2007	Returns (Per cent)
Principal Personal Tax Saver	Rs 168.31	66.73
Principal Tax Savings	Rs 93.22	50.63
Canequity-Tax Saver	Rs 19	46.52
Birla Sun Life Tax Relief '96	Rs 111.72	45.87
Kotak Tax Saver	Rs 16.83	45.11
Escorts Tax Plan	Rs 53.75	40.54
Fidelity Tax Advantage	Rs 14.92	40.20
Magnum Taxgain	Rs 50.95	39.15
Birla Equity Plan	Rs 68.23	38.06
ABN AMRO Tax Advantage	Rs 15.69	36.93

Source: www.valueresearchonline.com