Know how you are advantageous by filing return through Taxsmile
Features
Access
Coverage
Tax Knowledge
Accuracy
Speed
Security
Data Retrieval
Fees
Post Filing Support
Satisfaction
Taxsmile
Taxsmile.com, being an online tax preparation and filing portal can be accessed at anytime, anywhere.
Being a self-help portal, Taxsmile.com covers every aspect of return filing with regards to Indian employees. Minute information of law has been taken into consideration while framing the intuitive question, so that the user does not miss any part of his income and expenditure.
Data entry screens provided by Taxsmile.com are intuitive and simple. There is no mention of complicated sections or tax jargons. Hence it is easy for a normal person to understand the question and provide relevant data. Rest is taken care by Taxsmile.com's tax engine. You are not required to know tax law, while preparing and filing your return through Taxsmile.
The website of Taxsmile.com is thoroughly tested by in-house team of experts for accuracy and acceptability. Add to this Tax calculations provided by Taxsmile has been tested and certified by Chartered Accountants to be accurate.
The servers of Taxsmile.com are hosted at well-managed data center which is continuously monitored and upgraded depending upon the load. Hence you get maximum speed at any moment of time. Further being a registered e-Return Intermediary, Taxsmile uses web-service provided by the Income Tax Department, thus uploads your return on real time basis.
At Taxsmile.com, your data is secured by way of user-id and password and hence is not accessible to any third party. Secondly Taxsmile uses a 128-bit encryption for transmitting data between customer's browser and the server.
Taxsmile.com has proper disaster recovery capabilities in the event of unforeseen circumstances, thus keeping your data secured and easily retrievable.
Taxsmile.com follows transparent & standard pricing policy irrespective of the amount of income or different source of income. A nominal fee of Rs.249/- is levied in lieu of support and guidance provided through email & chat round the year.
Taxsmile.com provides limited post-filing support in case you receive intimation / notice from Income Tax Department.
You will feel a sense of satisfaction on having prepared and filed return on your own. You are fully aware of what information you have passed to the Department and what is its implication on tax calculation.
Tax Professional
You have to take an appointment of the Tax Professional and visit personally to his office for preparing and filing your Income Tax Return.
Although expert in their field, Tax Professional may miss out asking some minor question which would have major impact on tax calculation. This also depends on the qualification and experience of the person handling your tax matter.
At Tax Professional, since the burden of preparation and filing is taken over by the Professional, here too you are not required to have any tax knowledge. However since the Professional would prepare your return by asking relevant questions and document provided by you, the accuracy depends upon the quality and relevance of questions asked by the Professional.
Tax Professionals are expert in tax knowledge. However normally Income Tax Returns are prepared using a third party software and hence the accuracy of tax calculation depends upon the software used by the Tax Professional.
Tax Professional would prepare your return, based on his workload and hence there is always a wait period. Further upload of your return depends upon his internet bandwidth and software he uses for the purpose of e-filing.
At Tax Professional, confidentiality of your data depends upon the care and precaution taken by the Tax Professional. In any case, your financial data is vulnerable to all the members working in the organisation of the Tax Professional.
Retrieval of your data depends upon backup and restore facility available in the third party software used by the Tax Professional and frequency of backup taken by the Tax Professional.
Fees charged by Tax Professionals varies between any two Tax Professionals and also depends upon the amount of income and type of income earned.
Tax Professionals provide full post-filing support, but at an additional cost.
To the Tax Professionals, you only provide the raw data. You are not aware of why such information has been asked and what is its implication on tax calculation. Hence the level of personal satisfaction is lower.
Tax Department
The Excel utility provided by the Income Tax Department has to be downloaded on a particular computer and can be accessed only on that computer.
This being the utilities developed by Tax authority itself, all aspects are covered. However the questions not being intuitive or simple, you may skip some questions having major impact on your tax calculation.
The utilities provided by Income Tax Department contain sections and some straight forward tax question. A person is required to have good knowledge of tax laws, to complete the data asked in the utilities.
Since the utilities have been prepared by Income Tax Department itself, chances of inaccurate tax calculation are very minimal. However you may file an inaccurate return, if you have used an old utility, containing some calculation error, which was later rectified and new utility was released.
Due to heavy rush, at times, Income Tax Department e-filing server does get slow down resulting in delay in e-filing of returns.
Data with regards to your Income Tax Return when done through Excel Utility resides on the computer / laptop where you have downloaded the utility provided by Income Tax Department. Confidentiality of your data depends upon the security measure taken by you.
Personal computer and laptops are vulnerable to virus attack and hard disk failure, resulting in loss of crucial data in absence of due care when the mode of preparation is Excel Utility.
The utilities provided by Income Tax Department for preparation of Income Tax Return are free of cost. Also filing is free of cost. However no support / guidance are provided.
Income Tax Department does not provide any post-filing support.
Since the utilities have sections and tax jargons, you tend to fill up the information to the best of your knowledge. Here too you do not feel fully satisfied, although you have prepared return on your own.