[h43k3r]

Great for just calculating the amount of tax that one needs to pay without going into the process of login and setting up a user account. +1 for the great interface.

Cleartax.in (YC funded) provides a much more comprehensive solution of filing taxes and returns. Although their UI needs a serious upgrade as per today's standards.

Yesterday only, I have used Cleartax.in to file my Income Tax Return. Their service is simple to use and they do appropriate checks to make sure that your filing is consistent.

PS - Not affiliated to Cleartax.

[arihant]

I have tried it, but I didn't understand why I would ever use it. The Income Tax e-filing is already dead simple in India, and has only become better over the years. You just put data in and it basically does everything for you. If you use DSC then it's as instant as it gets.

So I don't really see the benefit of using Cleartax for personal filing. It might be feeding on distrust towards Gov services among people. But IT filing tool is already dead simple and easy.

Cleartax may have uses for businesses if they Uber-ify the hiring of CA for short term.

[architgupta]

Hi Arihant,

I work at ClearTax http://cleartax.in - so I'll add some feedback here.

Many people find the Government tool intimidating and difficult to use. It is hard to figure out which Form to file (there is ITR-1, 2, 3, 4S, 4) and now there's a new tax form (ITR-2A) which muddies the waters further.

ClearTax identifies the correct tax form for you automatically. You upload your Form-16 (W-2 equivalent for India) and our software will automatically read everything and fill out the correct tax form within seconds. We'll take you through a simplified form which will ask basic questions and help you make progress. If you get stuck, our support team answers questions or you can buy CA assistance for complex plans.

The Government form is sufficiently complicated for Income earned from Rent (if you own a house), because it won't give you the 30% deduction (Section 24) in the ITR-1.

If you need to figure out long term or short term capital gains when you sell assets, the Government form is very very difficult to use even for experts (We have 10K+ Chartered Accountants using the professional version of ClearTax).

I truly believe that the level of cognitive complexity in the Government's tool is much higher than ClearTax.

Lakhs of users in India e-File on ClearTax because they find it simpler than the Government's tool.

I do agree that for an expert user, the tools may feel equivalent :)

Regards, Archit