Exclusive: Hello Tax gets angel funding

Hello Tax, an app that helps users fill income tax returns easily, has raised an angel round of funding from a high-profile investor, a top company executive told VCCircle.

Himanshu Kumar, co-founder, Hello Tax, said it will use this first round of external funding for marketing for the app.

The app, which is operated by Delhi-based iTechFlock Software Pvt Ltd, has raised Rs 2 crore ($294,000) from Sanjeev Sinha, chief managing director at brokerage firm Amrapali Aadya. Amrapali, which was launched in 2004, offers services such as online equity trading, mutual funds and insurance, among others.

Kumar, a chartered accountant, said people are not keen to file income tax returns as they believe that the process is tedious and may require assistance of professionals like CAs and lawyers.

"Users do not have to understand the return filing process as Hello Tax has an intuitive user interface that guides users to navigate from one screen to the other and with three-four clicks, they can file ITR," Kumar said.

Kumar, who is also the founder of crowd funding platform Angle Paisa, launched the firm last year along Vikash Srivastava and Abhinav Kumar. While Srivastava is co-founder and director at an IT firm called Triazine Software Pvt. Ltd, Abhinav is serving another IT firm, Spearhead Software Solutions Pvt. Ltd, as chief information officer.

Apart from ITR filing, the app helps users keep their tax-related documents in the Hello tax drive.

"Hello Tax helps users keep track of their investment right from the beginning of the financial year. Users can also keep documents related to reimbursement like hotel, travel and food bills," Kumar said.

The firm is charging Rs 125 for a single return filing. Earlier, it was offered free for the first year. Over 2,000 income tax return filings have been done through the app, so far.

The app is available for Android, iOS and Windows users. Users also have the option to upload their Form 16 for the same.

Other firms in the space include ClearTax, TaxSmile, TaxSpanner and HRBlock. ClearTax has recently raised $2 million in pre-Series A funding from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel's Founders Fund Angel and Sequoia Capital.

According to a recent statement issued by the Finance Ministry, the IT department issued 2.10 crore refunds totalling over Rs 1.22 lakh crore in 2015-16.

"During FY2015-16, more than 2.10 crore refunds amounting to Rs 1,22,425 crore were paid compared with Rs 1,12,188 crore in FY2014-15 and Rs 89,664 crore in FY2013-14," the finance ministry statement said.

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