Individual taxpayers are increasingly taking the help of start-ups to file their income tax (IT) returns, giving chartered accountants a run for their money.
Online portals such as ClearTax, Taxsmile and Quicko are witnessing a jump in traffic as the July 31 deadline for filing individual tax returns approaches. Also, the number of taxpayers using these portals has been almost doubling every year.
Gamut of services
Over the last few years, e-filing portals have increased the gamut of services from basic tax return filing to customised packages for small businesses. Some even enable chartered accountants to use the online platform to service their offline clientele.
“Our user base is more than doubling every year and more than 10 lakh people have e-filed their tax returns using our portal,” said Archit Gupta, founder, ClearTax, one of the biggest players in the segment.
According to SimilarWeb, a site tracking portal ranking and traffic, most of the leading players in the online tax filing segment witnessed a spurt in visits in the last couple of months. During May-June, the page visits increased from 7.9 lakh to 13.5 lakh on ClearTax.
Do-it-yourself
Similarly, the number of visits reported for Taxsmile tripled from 30,000 to 90,000 in the same period. Quicko also saw the number of page visits double between May and June.
“Our objective is to build a do-it-yourself software that simplifies the entire process of tax filing and also aids in management of finances,” said Quicko founder Vishvajit Sonagara. “We have created Quicko as a platform to focus on financial planning.”
Most sites have software that grab data from an uploaded Form 16 and fill the forms within minutes and ease the process of filing returns. Sites even have functions that allow uploading of multiple forms if an individual has changed jobs during the financial year.
The portals even compete with chartered accountants on the price factor with fees starting from Rs.400. Most accountants charge upward of Rs.700.
Investment portfolio
“We encourage the taxpayers to not only file returns, but to also build an investment portfolio,” said Mr. Sonagara.
The sites aim to tap the large customer base of individual taxpayers. According to IT department data, the number of taxpayers rose 19 per cent between 2011-12 and 2014-15 to about 4.87 crore individuals.
Between April 1 and May 31, 2016, about 2.35 crore taxpayers e-filed their returns, IT department data show.
