
Show HN: Income Tax Calculator - rk0567
http://incometaxcalculator.net.in
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chdir
Nice. However I must ask, the official tax department's site has been revamped
and added a very slick calculator [1] a few months or maybe a year ago. Is
there a good reason to prefer yours ?

However, if you are an expert in tax rules, here's something I'd pay money for
- clear tax guidance in the form of a decision engine, where I can feed my
inputs and get an accurate interpretation of the tax rules. I will pay for
this as long as you can back the interpretation by a certified tax consultant.

[1] [http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Pages/tools/income-tax-
calc...](http://www.incometaxindia.gov.in/Pages/tools/income-tax-
calculator.aspx)

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rk0567
> Is there a good reason to prefer yours ?

Maybe not, yet. But over a period of gradual improvement, it may offer
something unique to certain niche. e.g beginner users, who would prefer a tax
calculation tool with a clear and easy to understand step by step guide,
followed by some tax related advise etc (something similar to what you've
recommended). Thanks.

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damoncali
How depressing is it for us in the US that the Indian tax code is simple
enough that someone can "show HN" a tax calculator.

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dylanjermiah
Have to keep TurboTax and its derivatives in business somehow :)

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damoncali
I've always wondered what would/will happen when the tax code gets so
complicated that nobody can understand it, and we have to rely on a machine to
interpret it. A sort of brave new world where the inputs are collected by
computers, the tax is calculated by computers and taken by computers, all
understood only by a small cadre of tax coders. Kind of scary.

~~~
briandear
Milton Friedman explains tax code complexity brilliantly here:

[http://youtu.be/TruCIPy79w8](http://youtu.be/TruCIPy79w8)

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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.

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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](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

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petercooper
The British equivalent:
[http://www.listentotaxman.com/](http://www.listentotaxman.com/)

Only for people with normal jobs or self employed though, doesn't take things
like capital gains or dividends into account (but these have nicer rates than
normal income anyway, so it's good as a worst case calculator anyway.)

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learnstats2
Even if you're self-employed, it doesn't take into account National Insurance
quite correctly.

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Splendor
> "TDS Deducted from Salary"

It would be helpful to explain initialisms like TDS for those who don't know.

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gt5050
Tax Deducted at Source, basically the employer deducts the tax before making
the payment to the employee

More here
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Deducted_at_Source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Deducted_at_Source)

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option_greek
I can't help but notice the .net.in domain. I haven't seen this before. Is
this like .co.in but for .net versions ?

I feel the website is a good starting point but would be nice if it had more
sliders for providing various inputs and a real time update of the tax to be
paid.

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rk0567
yeah, I couldn't find anything else.

Points noted. It's the initial version of what I wanted to build. I'll add
more features gradually as I get some input/suggestion from the users. Thank
you.

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architgupta
ClearTax has a tax calculator as well :D

[https://cleartax.in/paytax/TaxCalculator](https://cleartax.in/paytax/TaxCalculator)

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umeshunni
I think you may have a floating point bug or
two:[http://imgur.com/zmOCoY0](http://imgur.com/zmOCoY0)

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rk0567
Thanks. I'll fix that.

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anpat
Looks nice. Just a question, are you storing the data. (I know not sensitive
but still.)

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rk0567
No. Data never leaves the browser (temporarily stored on client's browser
using sessionStorage).

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bigdataspark
Do you store any other data other than typed in, like IP, browser, etc?

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twoodfin
Fascinating. My income tax liability in India would roughly match my liability
here in the United States (assuming I took similar deductions).

Are there Indian equivalents to the U.S. payroll taxes or other broad-based,
non-consumption taxes?

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seanmcdirmid
Ugh, taxes are due in 6 days. I have to remember to do them soon.

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gboone42
Really wish this was open source. :/

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known
Looks good.

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MichaelCrawford
I used Revenue Canada's instructions for computer programs to create a
spreadsheet that I called "payswell". I GPLed it and published it at
sourceforge however I only implemented one tax year.

In the US every state has different income taxes; some don't have income tax
at all such as Washington. I always intended to create a US spreadsheet but
the task seems daunting.

