The thought of filing yearly income tax returns gives the best of us quite a headache. One is likely to get lost among the jumble of figures, deductions, exemptions and tax sections, make mistakes, get bored with the exercise, sit over it for months and finally miss the government’s filing deadline. Vishvajit Sonagara, taking pity on the fumbling multitudes, founded Quicko.com, “the simplest way to file your taxes online in India.” And it’s fun, he insists. Quicko provides ITR-1 filing software to Indian taxpayers for free, guarantees 100% accuracy and privacy, maximum refund, expert advice and updates on changes in tax laws. In short, all possible help so that you can do it yourself.

1. Tax return website Quicko offers helping hand to 50,000 filers

2. Prelude
The thought of filing yearly income tax returns gives the best of us
quite a headache. One is likely to get lost among the jumble of
figures, deductions, exemptions and tax sections, make mistakes, get
bored with the exercise, sit over it for months and finally miss the
government’s filing deadline.

3. Visvajit Sonagara explains with an Example
• If you own a house, and happen to have a home loan on that, you
will be asked about tax breaks that you would want to claim on this
income. These questions are usually in the form of input boxes, with
income tax sections marked next to them, such as 80C, 80EE, 24B
etc. In the case of Quicko, we ask simple questions
• Did you buy a house? Do you have a home loan? If so, how much
interest/principal do you pay? “We aim to remove the complexity
from filing income tax returns. Simply put, our customers do not
require a calculator to file their returns,” he says.
• Quicko starts providing services to tax filers from July 1, with the aim
of filing 50,000 tax returns in the first year itself, thereby becoming
the fourth largest services provider. It plans to more than double
that number to over a lakh returns in 2016.

4. Bootstrapped with a difference
• Vishvajit, who has worked in the personal finance space for close to a
decade, realised the need for and potential of bringing 21st century
personal finance to Indian consumers while working at Fidelity
investment and Deutsche Bank.
• He noticed how brands like mint.com, wealthfront.com, betterment.com
and aspirations.com, involved in personal finance, were a rage in the US.
• In India, the government is the biggest service provider but, says
Quicko’s founder, it lacks will, vision, and resources to improve online
experience. Basically, it provides the minimum common services. That
leaves huge opportunities for private service providers, which Vishvajit
has made good use of.

5. Target audience, Investor jackpot
• The number of online tax return filers has increased exponentially from
just over 20 lakh, to 3.5 crore, in the last five years. That is a whopping 80%
compound annual growth, at a time when the government plans to make
all tax filing online by 2016.
• Most of Quicko’s target audience resides in Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities.
“Considering that compliance will improve significantly (30-40%) with
digitalization, we are looking at more than 10 crore online tax filers,” says
Vishvajit.
• Investors are already pitching in. Quicko is engaged in pre-series A
funding talks with VC firms in India and the US. Scarecrow, the world’s
leading independent agency which has represented brands such as Quikr,
Housing, and Viacom as a creative ad agency, has also partnered with the
startup in an equity deal valuing over $2 million

6. Challenges and growth prospects
• For Vishvajit, the main challenge is safeguarding customer data.
“Safeguarding it from abuse is a huge challenge for the entire segment,”
he says. “Our team has experience in working at the world’s leading
financial institutions
• For Quicko, growth opportunities are abundant since most players in the
segment are traditional accounting firms “with the narrow vision of
providing an online channel to file returns”. Vishvajit says the segment is
critically underserved, and considering the digital revolution that is
happening in India, there is the chance for huge growth.
• Vishvajit believes he is serving the public. “At Quicko, we believe paying
taxes is a right and not a responsibility. We believe that providing people
an opportunity to exercise their right to pay tax at zero cost is public
service,” he says.

7. Don’t forget to File Returns on time, online.