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7 Reasons why you should file Income Tax Returns electronically

guest — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:02:28 +0000

One out of every three tax returns are now filed electronically in India_[1].That’s 1.64 crore tax returns. The Income Tax Department has scripted one of the largest transitions from paper to electronic form in the country. They introduced e-filing five years ago and now e-filing accounts for 1/3 of all tax returns filed.

The dramatic adoption rate was pushed by a lot of effort on the part of the I-T department: Customer education, advertising in Newspapers, TV, compulsory regulation, encouraging third party tools and a fairly high quality infrastructure to support the high transaction online volume.

The primary driving factor is convenience. E-filing is much better than the paper based alternative. Cheaper, more efficient and safer.

So here are the Top 7 reasons why you should file your tax return electronically this year:

1. Compulsory for some people:

There are cases where it is mandatory to file tax returns electronically. If you earn more than 10 Lakh Rupees a year, you have to e-File. If your books are audited, then you have to e-File. Businesses typically have to e-File.

2. Faster Refund processing:

The Income Tax Department has a mandate of issuing refunds faster for e-filed returns. The internal deadline is 59 days for issuing refunds of returns received electronically. This is useful if you have a refund coming.

3. Convenience:

Why go to the Income Tax office to submit a tax return when you can submit the tax return at the click of a button? Petrol is very expensive, so anything that helps you avoid a trip is great!

4. Color printing needed for ITR-1 and ITR-4S:

The new ITR-1 and ITR-4S forms need to be printed in colored format. Access to good quality color printout may not be always available. It is easy to just submit electronically instead of worrying about the quality of the print-out. The colored format is specified by the I-T department so they can scan your tax return. So in the end your tax return is going to be processed electronically. Might as well help the department!

5. Accuracy of data:

The I-T department will scan your tax return or someone will manually feed in the data to their electronic systems. There might be mistakes in this manual process. It is better to submit data electronically. You know they’ll get the same data you actually submitted!

6. Better for the environment:

The tax return you print is on paper that is obtained from cutting down trees. Be good to the environment. E-file and save the environment!

7. Electronic backup of your tax records:

If you use e-filing with service providers like cleartax, you get backup of your tax records which you can download when you need them later. A lot of times, we need I-T returns for visa applications, bank loan applications, etc. We forget to keep photocopies of the original tax return or sometimes just misplace the papers. With electronic backup of tax records, we can go to the service provider website and download them again.

Issues with e-filing

When you e-file, you get an ITR-V which is an acknowledgement. You have to send this ITR-V to the Income Tax Department within 120 days of electronic filing. Also this ITR-V has to be sent by ordinary post (Indian Postal Service).

This is a bad requirement in my opinion. In our experience a lot of people forget to send in their ITR-V in time. Using Indian Postal Service is also an issue for some people.

You can avoid sending the ITR-V if you file your tax return with a Digital Signature Certificate. The process with digital signature is completely electronic. You provide your digital signature at the time of electronic filing and this proves your identity. Then, you don’t need to send ITR-V at all.

Send that ITR-V

Still, If you don’t want to use a Digital Signature Certificate, just print the ITR-V (one page), sign it, put it in an envelope, stick a stamp and put it in a mailbox. Also note that most courier companies provide service to send your envelope via Indian Postal Service. They might have a small extra charge for handling your envelope. Don’t send a courier as it won’t get delivered.

[1] Based on the data released by the Income Tax Department and the Direct Tax Code Report. / [Image Credit]

[About the Author: Archit Gupta, is the founder of ClearTax. ClearTax helps Individuals prepare and electronically file their Income Tax Returns. You can contact him via email: archit@cleartax.in]

Airtel acquires 49% in Qualcomm BWA entities!

Arun Prabhudesai — Fri, 25 May 2012 05:14:15 +0000

The talks were on for past few days, and finally the news is out – Bharti Airtel has acquired 49% stake in Qualcomm AP’s India BWA entities.

The main purpose of this acquisition is for the BWA licenses Qualcomm holds in Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala. This partnership will enable Airtel to roll out and offer 4G data services to four telecoms zones, including the lucrative Delhi and Mumbai, where it does not have its own 4G services. The company recently launched commercial 4G networks in Kolkata and Bangalore.

According to the press press release Under the partnership agreement, Bharti has made an investment of USD 165 million (approx. Rs. 908 crore) to acquire 49 % interest in Qualcomm AP’s India entities – partly by way of acquisition of 26 percent equity interest equally held by Global Holding Corporation Pvt. Ltd. and Tulip Telecom Ltd., and the balance by way of subscription of fresh equity in those entities. The agreement contemplates that once commercial operations are launched, subject to certain terms and conditions, Bharti would assume complete ownership and financial responsibility for the BWA entities by the end of 2014.

Before the news came out, most of analysts were expecting Bharti to buy Qualcomm’s asset for close to 5000 crores, however, acquisition of nearly half the stake for about 900 crores is surely a good deal from Bharti’s perspective. Having said that, Bharti may eventually spend nearly the same amount for remaining stake in Qualcomm’s BWA entities.

With this acquisition, Bharti now has a near pan-India coverage for offering 4G & 3G services combined.

Bharti Airtel’s BWA / 4G footprint:

Kolkata
Karnataka
Punjab
Maharashtra
Delhi
Mumbai
Haryana
Kerala

Bharti Airtel’s 3G footprint:

Delhi
Mumbai
Andhra Pradesh
Karnataka
Tamil Nadu
Uttar Pradesh (West)
Rajasthan
West Bengal
Himachal Pradesh
Bihar
Assam
North East
Jammu & Kashmir

India’s Top Marketing Companies: Telecom Brands Lead

Kaushambi — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:18:47 +0000

Ipsos recently released a survey that listed India’s top marketing companies in 2012. Indian telecom companies like Idea Cellular, Tata Docomo, Vodafone and Airtel were in the top 25. The survey noted that 3 of these telecom brands roped in celebrities for their advertising and marketing while Vodafone was the only one that innovated their campaigns with animated Zoozoos.

The telecom market in India is currently extremely dynamic. On one hand, telecom brands are vying for the market share in a country with a recorded mobile user base of about 91 crore. And on the other hand, they and dealing with challenging problems like broadband connectivity, changing TRAI regulations and so on. Here is a snapshot of how these telecom brands have fared in the marketing strategies in the recent times.

Vodafone

The IPSOS Survey ranks Vodafone as the best marketing company in India. Ever since Hutch saw success with the ‘You and I’ campaign in 2006, Vodafone has never looked back. They have launched several successful advertising campaigns after that.

In 2012, Vodafone continued to ride on the success of its Super Zoozoo series that was used to launch their 3G services in 2011. Vodafone also launched the Blue Facebook phone in 2012 to fulfill the Indian youth’s social networking needs.

In 2012, Vodafone has re-launched its famous brand mascot – the pug in campaign to aggressively promote Mobile Number Portability. Amongst all the telecom companies, Vodafone has a revenue share of 21 percent in the telecom market.

Bharti Airtel

The IPSOS Survey ranks Airtel as the second best marketing company in India. This year, Airtel was also one of the three Indian brands that entered the coveted Mildred and Brown report of the Top 100 Global Brands.

Airtel has been traditionally leveraging celebrity power to reach their users with stars like Shah Rukh Khan, Vidya Balan, R Madhavan, A R Rahman, Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. But in 2011-12 they took a different route with the ‘Har Friend Zaroori Hai Yaar‘ campaign.

Airtel has also been in the news for its sponsoring the F1 race recently and its tie up with Axis Bank for offering mobile banking services through Airtel Money. According to latest TRAI figures, the revenue share of Airtel in the Indian telecom market is 28 percent.

Idea Cellular

Idea signed Abhishek Bachchan as its brand ambassador in 2007 and has been successfully continuing its campaign till date without employing other celebrities for its marketing. The advertising campaign of Idea Cellular started out by promoting inclusiveness and offering network coverage to the remotest part of India.

In 2011, Idea’s main focus remained on promoting its 3G services. In 2012, Idea ads are promoting various Idea apps. The long lasting ‘What an Idea Sirjee’ campaign has also attempted to weave in a social message in some of its ads – be it saving paper or having a casteless society. Idea ranks at the 12^th place amongst best marketing companies in India in the IPSOS survey.

According to TRAI figures, the revenue share of Idea Cellular in the Indian telecom market is 12 percent.

Tata Teleservices

From the very beginning, Tata Docomo has maintained its message of ‘a network that connects everywhere’ through its advertising campaigns that show how the user is forced to pick up their calls in the oddest of situations by cashing in on their signature Docomo tune. Docomo has also leveraged social media extremely well. It is one of the few Indian brands that created its official ID on numerous blogs and forums – from MySpace to Rediffmypages to Bharatstudent.

Docomo went ahead and used YouTube as a medium to interact with their users by allowing them to upload animation videos created by them. In 2011 the brand signed Ranbir Kapoor as the brand ambassador for their ‘Keep it Simple’ campaign in which the aim was to simplify their differentiated products and services. Docomo ranked at the 16^th spot in the IPSOS survey. Tata Teleservices have a revenue share of 8 percent in the Indian telecom market, as per TRAI figures.

It is important for these brands to rethink whether they are only producing creative and innovative advertising or are users really being able to differentiate between their products and services. Just like many players in the automobile industry are now catering many of their marketing campaigns to rural India, the next move for telecom brands too could be in the same direction.

India’s High School students crazy for Social Networking & Mobile Devices!

Arun Prabhudesai — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:35:00 +0000

One of the most comprehensive school level survey conducted by TCS finds that Indian children between age of 12 and 18 are quickly adopting new modes of networking using social platforms like Facebook and Twitter and tools like instant messaging (IM) and chat. The survey was conducted in 12 Indian cities with over 12,300 students participating in the survey.

The survey also shows that these trends among students are not limited to metros alone, but are similar in upcoming Tier II towns.

Interesting findings of the survey:

- 75% of the students said that main reason they access Internet was to do “Research for School” followed by chatting (68%) and listening to music (50%).

- Over 84% of the students go online from home compared to just 58% (in 2009).

- Use of Cyber Café’s for online access has reduced dramatically to 20% as compared to 46% in 2009.

- 88% of students have presence on a Social platform like Facebook. Twitter is used by atleast 1/3^rdof surveyed students.

- Sites like Linkedin are increasing in popularity especially in business-centric cities like Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

- 8 out of 10 high school students own mobile phones and more than 40% use mobile phones to access the internet (compared to just 12% in 2009)

- An emerging trend is the use of tablets with almost 14% using these new devices.

- 50% of students used SMS the most to communicate while 45% used IM and 38% used Facebook or Twitter – much higher than students who said they used email (34%) for the same purpose.

- Though use of emails (55%) in mini-metros is higher than metros (34%).

- Television is falling off the radar, with it being the least favorite gadget among students. With 28% votes, Mobile phone was the most popular gadget.

- 45% of students in the metros own a gaming console as compared to 16% in mini metros.

- IT remains the top career preference amongst youngsters, irrespective of geography, with Engineering and Medicine coming next.

- Media & Entertainment are emerging as a urban favorites.

- Interestingly career in Retail sector is the least favorite among high school students.

Most of the findings are not all that surprising – however, there is clearly a paradigm shift in the way previous generations socialized, communicated & worked. The Generation Y is more online, always connected and much better acquainted with technology than before!

[source]

Petrol Prices hiked by over 10% – reaches Rs. 78.16 in Mumbai!

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:35:34 +0000

The inevitable has happened – The Oil companies have decided to increase the petrol prices by Rs. 7.50 per litre from midnight today (23rd May 2012). Given the steep depreciation that rupee is witnessing against the dollar, this was very well on the cards.

The Petroleum Minister had mentioned yesterday that there was an urgent need to increase petrol prices and If rupee depreciates by one against the US dollar, oil companies stand to lose Rs 8,000 crore (annually)"

The oil companies said they will raise petrol price by Rs 6.28 per litre excluding local sales tax or VAT. The hike translates into Rs 7.50 per litre in Delhi

Here are the revised prices for major cities:

Delhi – Revised to Rs. 73.14 per litre from existing Rs. 65.64.
Kolkata – Revised to Rs. 77.53 per litre from existing Rs. 70.03.
Mumbai – Revised to Rs. 78.16 per litre from existing Rs. 70.66.
Chennai - Revised to Rs. 77.05 per litre from existing Rs. 69.55.
Pune – Revised to Rs. 78.41 per litre from existing Rs. 70.91.

There was no word on increase of pricing in Diesel. Government had increased petrol prices in November last year.

What really needs to be seen is how this will affect inflation – Only recently it was showing signs of slowing down, but with such a steep hike in petrol, looks like inflation is surely going to shoot up back again!

Indian Funding, M&A and PE Deals of the week [May 14th to May 20th 2012]

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:12:38 +0000

Here are the Funding, PE and M&A deals happened in India for the week starting May 14^th 2012.

Funding, Private Equity and M&A Deals of the week [May 14^th to May 20^th 2012]

Funded Company / Acquired Company	Deal Type	Who Funded / Who Acquired	Funding Amount	Remarks
Manipal Hospitals	Private Equity	India Value Fund	USD 100 Million	For expansion of Hospitals

Drawbridge	Series A	Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital	USD 6.5 Million	To self-learning cross-device advertising solution

Atyati technologies	Acquisition	Genpact	Undisclosed	Technology Acquisition in rural banking space

Carazoo.com	Majority Stake	Source Interlink Media	Undisclosed	to leverage its brands and expertise

Hippocampus Learning Center	Series A	Lok Capital, Acumen	USD 1.2 Million	N/A

Radiant Hospitality	Acquisition	OCS Systems	USD 5 to 5.5 million*	*unconfirmed , For expansion in India

Akquasun Holidays India	Majority Stake	Expolanka Holdings PLC	USD 1 Million	for India expansion

ASIX Krishi Samruddhi	Private Equity	Acumen Fund	USD 2 Million	To add new branches across India

NaanDanJain Irrigation Limited	Majority Stake	Jain Irrigation	Undisclosed	For 50% stake in the JV

Joy Mining Services India Private Ltd	Acquisition	Simplex Infrastructures Ltd	Undisclosed	For expanding its coal mining business

Decision Resources Group	Acquisition	Piramal Healthcare	USD 635 million	N/A

Speciality Restaurant Limited	Private Equity	Anchor investors	USD 5 Million	for expanding their restaurants

qcabs.com	acquisition	Carzonrent India Private Limited	Undisclosed	for extending its reach

chakpak.com	acquisition	Trivone Digital	Undisclosed	To increase its presence in the Digital Media landscape in India

wheelsunplugged.com	acquisition	Trivone Digital	Undisclosed	To increase its presence in the Digital Media landscape in India

Bisco Bio Sciences Private Limited	Majority Stake	Vilmorin	Undisclosed	To set-up Indian base in Corn Market

Madeinhealth.com	acquisition	Healthkart.com	Undisclosed	Strategic Acquisition to gain market share

[We are sometimes unable to get the funding amounts, as they are not disclosed. However, we update this sheet when it becomes public. If you are aware of amounts, and they have not been put up in the table, please do get in touch with us.]

You can check out coverage of all the previous Weekly Funding & M&A deals round-up here.

Note: Even though we try our best to bring you all the funding / M&A deals of the week, there are always ones which go un-reported. Most of the deals which we put up here are published on multiple websites, and we do refer them to provide the accuracy of deal in question. If you know of the any that we have not covered, please let us know and we will be more than happy to add it to the list!

Brick & Mortar to E-commerce store – Replicating Customer Experience..

guest — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:53:12 +0000

Taking your store online?

Here are 5 learnings from your brick and mortar store that you should take forward.

What store layout is to offline, navigation is to online!

How many times have we seen customers lost in a store trying to figure out the right section for the product they are looking for? Signage, layout planning etc. were introduced to modern retail to solve this problem.

On your e-commerce site, this translates to User Interface design and Navigation. Plan your site structure properly. Ensure that your customer finds links where they are supposed to be. A/B testing helps to a great extent in figuring out this riddle.

Product Experience

In your offline store, shoppers have the advantage to touch and feel the product. They can take trials as well. But in online shopping, customers can only virtually experience the product.

Ensure that this experience is as complete as possible. Detailed product description (size chart, color options, wash care, material used, component specifications etc.), 360 degree & magnified product view etc. should all form an integral part of your content.

Cross selling / Up-selling

It is a well- established fact that retailers try to maximize ‘basket size’ or the ‘average transaction value’ per customer. The onus of this job rests primarily with the sales staff in an offline store. However on a website there is no person to person contact.

So how do you maximize the revenue you can generate per customer? Include ‘Recommendations’, ‘People who bought this also bought’, ‘People who viewed this also viewed’. An important caveat: Do not try to cross sell / upsell on the payment page. This may distract the shopper leading to abandonment of the shopping cart.

After Sales Service

This is an area where the online and the offline somewhat merge. While you can continue with some of your customer relationship management policies like Follow up with your customer regarding the performance of the product, send promotional mailers offering special discounts on birthdays, anniversaries, etc., you have to pamper your online customer a little more.

Benefits like Cash on Delivery, Replacement guarantee, On-time delivery, etc. help in strengthening the bond with the shopper.

Finding You!

This is very crucial. Thousands are competing with you for a share of the consumer’s wallet. Make sure you are able to break through the clutter and get noticed. Research on what your customers are searching for, optimize the metadata to rank for relevant keywords and last but not the least if you are venturing into digital, think digital. SEO, SEM, Social Media, Blogs, Forums…be wherever your customers are. And never ever forget the power of Word-of-mouth !

Your regular shoppers and online shoppers are not disjoint sets- they intersect! Create a holistic experience for them and you will never regret. All the best!

[About the author : Shilpi Choudhury handles Marketing at DiscountPandit. She blog on topics ranging from Startups to E-commerce to the Deal Industry. DiscountPandit is a Bangalore-based search engine for deals and product price comparison.]

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Falling Rupee chokes the Indian Economy but presents Investment Opportunities

Kaushambi — Wed, 23 May 2012 05:55:10 +0000

Indian rupee has been free falling against the US Dollar for a while and yesterday it touched a new all time low of 55.39 rupees against the American dollar. Whilst there have been recent reports about how the Indian economy is pegged to grow at 7.5% in 2012, depreciation in the value of rupee is not a good sign.

One of the first hits that the economy takes when rupee tumbles is the rise in cost of imports. India imports roughly 70% of its crude oil requirements and a falling rupee means that the government will have to pay more.

Although oil and petroleum prices are controlled, the end consumer may very well bear the brunt of this increase in costs.

US Dollar Vs Indian Rupee [ 1 Year Chart]

In fact, Petroleum Minister S Jaipal Reddy talked about an immediate increase in fuel prices yesterday when the rupee dipped to new lows. He said "If rupee depreciates by one against the US dollar, our oil companies lose Rs 8,000 crore (annually)"

Some Negatives of Falling Rupee

We know that higher fuel prices can spiral into increase in inflation as industries across the board take a hit. This dreadful cycle of higher costs for crude oil resulting in losses for government units and higher fuel costs for industries and the end consumer is a challenging situation for the Indian economy.

The falling rupee also hits companies which rely heavily on foreign currency outflows to keep business operations running. Take for example the airline industry. For airlines that service international routes – International airport fees, lease of airplanes, salaries of expat pilots, jet fuel prices and many more relatively fixed costs are dollar driven. Such outflows in dollar terms become costlier when realized when local currency falls.

A further hit in demand for foreign travel is taken as the common man is likely to cancel outbound overseas trips during these times. Flights, hotel stays and every other service in foreign countries becomes more expensive as the purchasing power of rupee falls.

Even domestic airlines scramble to keep fuel and airline lease costs under tab by implementing measures like avoiding flying at high altitudes, sourcing cheaper on-flight meals, hire local pilots and taxing aircrafts with one engine only.

A falling rupee is also bad for the share market as the negative trend not only portrays a grim picture from a pure number crunching approach but also weighs in on investor sentiment. Foreign Institutional Investors (FII) may suddenly go on sell mode if fear of future losses outweighs likelihood of gain.

On the upside, times like these are excellent buying opportunities. The stock market is currently trading in the vicinity of 4 month lows and blue chip stocks are bottoming out.

There could be an enormous gain potential for such stocks in the long run. Investors who have made their millions from the share markets wait month after month for opportunities like these to buy-in at lower prices and sell when markets rebound.

Some Positives of Falling Rupee

In the midst of this chaos as the rupee tumbles, industries with dollar dominated revenues may in fact benefit from the depreciation of local currency. A prime example is the Indian IT sector which relies heavily on overseas revenue.

As a majority of revenue comes from overseas markets, companies like Wipro, Infosys, TCS, etc may witness higher realization of their dollar dominated revenue. However with low global demand and weaker growth forecasts, the full potential of the upside of rupee depreciation for the IT sector is yet to be seen.

Sectors like domestic travel could witness a boost as travellers will prefer to stay away from foreign destinations where they will get a subdued bang for their buck for the time being. Even Indian expats living and working abroad benefit from rupee depreciation. If they are paid in dollars, the realization potential of their salary in rupee spikes.

The rupee has lost about 22% since the beginning of 2012 and more than 11% since February this year.

Certain analyst camps blame the downfall on global concerns while other claim domestic woes are fuelling the drop. The government and mainly the RBI will need to intervene and clamp down on the sliding rupee to add stability to already volatile markets.

The poor performance of rupee is a drag on the Indian economy however there are definitely certain upsides to a falling currency which represent gain opportunities if investment decisions are taken at the right time.

Google launches Business Photos in India

Kaushambi — Tue, 22 May 2012 10:50:20 +0000

Today Google launched Business Photos in India, a concept that puts businesses on the map – virtually and literally. In a pilot run, Google will take 360 degree pictures of businesses and will allow owners to upload them to their location on Google Places.

Google India’s official blog talks about the concept of taking pictures of business interiors to add to a business’ credibility. The concept stems off the idea that a business cannot always be judged by how its office looks on the outside.

After taking permission of the business owners who want their interiors to be photographed, Google’s certified Photographers will work directly with them. The 360 degree pictures of the interiors of businesses will be posted online via Google Places. This feature was originally available only to users in USA, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, France and UK. Countries recently added to its kitty are Ireland, Netherlands and Canada. Now the service has been finally launched in India.

Google Places allows owners to promote their businesses by providing detailed information to prospective customers, finding niche audiences and enhancing brand visibility through increased searchability.

Owners can also promote their ventures by posting photos, videos, coupons and even announcing special deals. On the other hand, customers can benefit by ranking and rating these business, finding the right offers and being armed with better information.

Google’s Business Photos complements Google Places and adds value by showing the customers the interior and the ‘feel’ of the business from inside. Business can now be ready to bare it all – the décor, the buzz, the merchandise, the display, the cleanliness, innovation in design et al.

Google Business Photos are in addition to the pictures owners can upload on Google Places. However Google Business Photos will be more detailed, higher quality and panoramic. Both will appear side by side in a Google search.

Currently Google is going to begin the pilot program in Hyderabad. It is inviting business owners in India to send in applications. Their premises will be photographed by Google appointed photographers, free of cost. From a business owner’s perspective, many scenarios come to mind. What if the owner of a gymnasium could display the interiors of a gym to give customers a great idea of what to expect when they walk in through the doors? What if spa owners could let potential customers get a feel of their services by putting their facilities up on a virtual display? Would it help if the owner of a car showroom could put up a virtual display of the actual showroom?

Many questions from a customer’s perspective come to mind too. What if a customer can simply go online and decide whether Spa A has better ambient lighting than Spa B or whether the tables at Café Z are not as crowded as in Café Y without actually visiting the shop front? How convenient would it be for a customer to simply go online and decide which night club to go to, just by comparing the Business Photos of 2 popular ones?

The answer to all these questions lie in one simple fundamental question – Can Google bring more Indians online? India has the world’s youngest population. This came at the back of reports that the Indian population will soon be amongst the top 3 in the world.

If tech savvy Indians begin previewing the services offered by businesses in India, Google may very well have created a monster platform that benefits both, businesses and customer. Not to mention, yet another possible revenue stream for the internet giant.