With only a couple more days to go for the Indian tax filing deadline, I thought it is relevant to cover the NCR based startup - ClearTax – that provides an easy & free way to file your personal tax online. Founded by a couple of IIT Guwahati alumns, ClearTax tries to do what TurboTax did to the US market. The service is free for personal filing, but if your filing involves capital gains, home interest etc, the fee is Rs.2400.
While their site is clean, it looks little too simple and a lot should be improved on the UI/UX front. For example, there is no menu structure to go their various pages – about us, pricing etc. We would suggest the team to hire a professional web development team. Also they need to get more serious with social media marketing – since their clientele is mostly savvy net users.
Here is an interview with the founder, Archit Gupta.
Give me a short intro of the what the company does.
Cleartax.in makes Income Tax Return preparation and efiling super easy online. The service is also FREE. Salaried individuals with Form-16s are able to file their taxes in ten minutes or so. (Its like Turbo Tax for India but Indian readers might not identify with that description)
Why are you doing this?
Compliance and regulatory burden on Individuals can be made zero today. The government has already done this for person who earn less than Rs. 5 Lakh. Now entrepreneurs can innovate and make it zero for almost everyone. The Government and the Income Tax Department has really done an awesome job in terms of opening up an e-filing platform and enabling applications to be built on top. With us driving the cost to zero, we are removing the inertia to try the service. The I-T department also processes refunds of electronic tax returns faster. Its a net win for the Indian customer to go online and e-file.
What is your USP?
First of all ClearTax.in is free to use. No questions asked. Second, ClearTax.in is dead simple to use. We can guarantee that you won’t see a simpler website for Income Tax preparation and e-filing. Third, ClearTax.in (the website) is built upon the technology of ClearTax Enterprise Edition. The Enterprise Edition is used by a large number of CA firms and corporations for their tax filing needs. So we are in the business of getting it right because CAs have scrutinized every bit of our product in minute detail.
What’s the benefit?
Folks can go online to the website and fill out details and e-file in one click. ClearTax.in is very easy to use. Simple questions are asked for tax filing. For example salaried Individuals just need their Form-16s for filing. Once the tax filing is done, all Income Tax returns are kept safely. People can return any time to get a copy of their Income Tax return for Visa or Loan applications. All they need to do is to sign-up for a free account on the website.
How can you afford to do this?
There’s 80% year on year growth in the number of folks who e-file (Source: Income Tax department: incometaxindiaefiling.gov.in). This is fantastic growth. Our business depends on what is known as the “freemium” model. In the fremium model, the business offers the bulk of the product for free and charges for premium features. Majority of the customers are satisfied with the free product, however, a small fraction of customers go for the premium service. In our premium service, our tax experts evaluate and help Individuals e-file their taxes. Kind of like what a CA does, but at a cheaper price point. So folks who need that extra help, get it at a reasonable price.
Freemium is quite a successful business model in the rest of the world (think Pandora.com, dropbox.com). Indian entrepreneurs are now adapting the freemium approach to target Indian customers.
How is ClearTax.in different from other online portals?
First of all its free. No questions asked. Second, ClearTax.in is dead simple to use. We can guarantee that you won’t see a simpler website for Income Tax preparation and e-filing. Third, ClearTax.in (the website) is built upon the technology of ClearTax Enterprise Edition. The Enterprise Edition is used by a large number of CA firms and corporations for their tax filing needs. So we are in the business of getting it right because CAs have scrutinized every bit of our product in minute detail.
Is ClearTax affiliated with ClearTrip?
No, we are not associated with ClearTrip in any way, though we are fans of the website. The similarity is that we are minimal in our website design and offer clear guidance just like ClearTrip.
Who is your target customer?
Any resident Indian who wants to efile their taxes. Salaried Individuals, folks earning rent, interest income, business income, capital gains etc.
Here is a demo of their product (it has a very annoying background music though)
Comments
About the Author
Balaji
+Balaji heads a consultancy firm - Agni Innovation Labs - that helps small businesses, law firms and political campaigners launch their brand successfully. The services include blogging, press releases, social media strategy development and email campaigning. Contact the author: balaji [at] theagni [dot] com for more details.
Comments