In last couple of years online tax return filing has taken off – According to reports, 51 lakh (out of 3.4 crore ) people filed their tax returns online in the year 2009-10, this number ballooned to 91.57 lakhs in 2010-11. That is close to 80% growth compared to previous year. Given the slew of new tax return filing websites which have come up in recent times, this number is expected to double this year.
Some of these websites are even offer attractive incentives to encourage users to file their taxes.
One such scheme is announced by Cleartax, an online tax return filing startup, who have offered women all over India Free tax returns filing. This offer by Cleartax is valid on cleartax website till July 26, 2012. The offer is an initiative by the company to invite women to take ownership of their finances.
Here is a video on how you can file Free Tax returns with Cleartax
In an analysis done by Cleartax, they found “women spent significantly less time paying attention to tax planning and personal finance compared with men. Some of it was unfamiliarity, some of it was cost, and some of it was hesitation. Since their peers weren’t doing tax and financial planning, women were less likely to pay attention to this topic. Men on the other hand in aggregate saved more on their taxes via deductions even though taxation rates for men are higher in India”
As part of the ClearTax for Women initiative, they will also be running more awareness campaigns for women professionals – with Fleximoms, an organization focused on women and work. Incase there are any queries about filing tax returns, a Facebook chat about filing taxes and related queries on is scheduled with ClearTax experts for the Fleximoms Community.
So all the Indian women out there, go ahead and take advantage of this – you should have no reason not to file your tax returns online now!