The codes of a taxation tool used by the American government are being written in Bidar, a town 750 km away from India’s IT capital of Bengaluru.
Hi-Ideals Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a company of around 20 engineers in their twenties, has developed an online tool to help truck owners in the United States pay tax. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collects taxes from vehicle owners which requires them to fill an online form on their website, and Hi-Ideals IT Solutions LLC. collects a fee on each transaction in the U.S.
“We created the tool to simplify the process of filing taxes,” says Sachidanand Chidre, who helmed the team that worked on the programme. “First, we helped the IRS eliminate the need for manual filing and cumbersome paperwork. We could also reduce the filing process to just five clicks from the 15 steps that were required earlier,” he said. Around 4,000 vehicle owners are using the system for filing taxes now. For every filing done on the website, Hi-Ideals gets a minimum of $7.95 per truck as fee.
A team of 15 engineers worked without break for eight months to prepare the programme named ‘Tax 2290’.
Gaining popularity
“Everything there [in the U.S.] is automated. A vehicle owner opens the web page and fills in the required details. The information collected on the website is transmitted to the IRS’ servers. They pay via online banking or e-wallets. The money passes through the secure payment gateway designed by Hi-Ideals. Once a transaction is confirmed, the vehicle owner gets an acknowledgement. The tool is gaining popularity and we are looking at working on other such forms,” Mr. Chidre said.
Mr. Chidre’s team is working on some e-commerce and data aggregation sites like sooperdeal.in and B8020.com. Fresh engineering graduates can get real-time internships in code writing and industrial training at a three-bedroom house converted into the Hi-Ideals office on Mannalli road in Bidar.
After completing Masters in Computer Applications, Mr. Chidre worked with IT companies, handling finance, banking and taxation, in Bengaluru, Chennai, and Pune before returning to Bidar to help his family with domestic issues. “My friend Rajarao Dharani Pragada suggested we start creating IT tools for financial transactions, and I jumped at the offer,” he said
Now, Mr. Pragada heads Hi-Ideals IT solutions LLC., U.S., and business-related issues; Mr. Chidre leads the technical team with his wife and fellow techie Shiva Leela; and associate Ravikant Ullagaddi takes care of the marketing.
