It is a very well known quote that only two things in life are certain - death and taxes. While the former can not be dealt in a better manner anyhow, the internet is surely opening up new avenues for the latter. E-filing, or filing your tax returns online, is soon becoming a rage in the country, with almost 22 lakh taxpayers filing their taxes online last year. The obvious explanations for this staggering figure are many. First of all, online filing saves away all the toil and effort spent in filling out the lengthy tax return form(s), and then standing in long queues to file the same manually. Secondly, there is no requirement to attach investment documents with the form and run the risk of these getting misplaced since one can just fill in the details in her/his online application and rest assured that everything would be filed in the correct manner. When one observes this phenomenon from the tax saving perspective also, online filing plays a vital role since it allows one to calculate his tax liability regularly and assess the impact of his decisions on his taxable income.

Another advantage is that there is little or no room for error while filling in the ITR, since one can always edit the details in case of any misspellings or wrong entry of data, hence ruling out any possibility of a wrong filing. There are a wide range of websites that offer this facility. Some of the prominent names are PaisaWaisa, Taxsmile, TaxShax and Taxpanner. When this facility was introduced for the first time in 2006-07, there were 3.7 lakh taxpayers that filed returns via the same. In the next year, i.e., 2007-08, the number shot up by almost six times with an increase of 18.3 lakh taxpayers to take the tally to 22 lakh, with over 11% opting for e-returns using digital signatures. This year, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is expecting somewhere close to 50 lakh e-filings, and considering the pace at which this phenomenon is growing, that number is not a distant possibility.

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Rupiz Infotech group, the driving force behind the impending foray of PaisaWaisa.com in the Indian market, is the name behind several companies having interests in various online business verticals like Telecommunications, Online Finance, Retail, VoIP Telephony, Media, Social networking, Gaming, etc. The principal companies involved in this umbrella group include ICallGlobe Ltd., Shakespeare Finance Ltd, Rupiz Compare Ltd. and Rupiz Media Ltd.