You don't smile with them.. do you?. Review on Taxsmile

Warning:

* This is an outright crib review(if at all you want to call it a review) but is based on personal experience, of course. So if you are looking for some useful tips on what their services comprises of or how to navigate on their website etc. I suggest you move on.

So, like many other vendors, Taxsmile also lined up with the finance guys at our organization to allow them set up a stall inside our company premises and offer to file returns of employees. What more, they even offered a discount on their standard charges. Rs. 170 as against Rs. 230(or something) they claim to be there fee otherwise.

Let me be honest, it was not the fee which lured me to them as there were companies which were offering this service for free of cost for the people whose taxes were to be filed simply on the basis of their Form 16(no additional income no trading no income from other sources etc.).Yours truly fall in this category of underprivileged people now a days in society who survive purely on the income from salary.

Let me accept, however, that I do have 10 shares of Reliance Capital and 20 for Adlabs films. This is due to a over concerned friend of mine who is a very active trader and to show that he indeed is my friend he lured my wife to transfer him 25K this year when share markets were tumbling. He, than went on to buy these shares for me which are very much in his name on his D’mat account, before I even got an inkling of all this. He has now assured me that he will sell these shares only when this amount to 50K at least. I have no personal liking(or dislike) for these companies but I do hope they do well if ever this hard earned money of mine has to reach me again L. Hence, legally, I do not have any involvement at Dalal street whatsoever.

PS – totally useless and irrelevant information, as usual J

Coming back to Taxsmile, it was there very effective and loud propaganda on local Radio which helped me remember their name thus resulting in to me walking up to their desk out of many at our cafeteria and giving them document to file my returns this year.

This was 24th of July and I was sure with such a simple statement, it should be done well before 31st of July. More than me, it was the lady on the other side of the desk who was confident of getting this done before dead line.

I was supposed to get an email in a couple of days with a soft copy of my return. All I had to do was to sign the copy in two and return it back to the same lady and my return would be filed. How far we have reached in first 60 years of our freedom, my heart was filled with joy looking at the simplicity of things.

And as you guessed it right, days changed to weeks and polite reminders to me barking on the phone. But people from Taxsmile were unmoved. Their corporate sales manager Mr. Saurabh Bhatnagar who was in-charge of the affairs for our company should be complemented for the ba**s he has. After a couple of times he stopped picking up my phone even J. Now was the turn of smaller fish to face the ire, the only other number we had from Taxsmile. But this poor fellow could not move beyond “Sir, I will surely make our manager Mr. Saurabh to give you a call back and get this resolved”.

After days and days of follow up, his highness Mr. Saurabh Bhatnagar has sent me a mail  today with a copy of my ITR returns. Also, he was so considerate that he sent me instructions to make sure that I take two print outs and sign both of them and also send them copy of my PAN Card( I don’t dare ask what they did to the first one I gave them along with original set of documents). He has instructed me to courier it to their office which I will dutifully do. I wont even think that why don’t they come and collect it, as promised? The cheque I gave them was en-cashed in a jiffy, may be they don’t have that money any more after a month for someone to come and collect it from me, so it is fine.

It is worth while to tell you folks that on their visiting cards they do not have a single phone number or email address of their office in Delhi. So if the case with the receipt they give you. Is it indicative of the “standard” this company has or they want to make sure if they have to wrap their business overnight and run away. it is simpler?

Me being god fearing and law fearing soul of India, want to make sure my returns are filed before I officially update concerned people at my organization. I would want they be questioned tough, if not outright rejected, for setting up their shop in our premises around the same time next year. That is, if they are operational till than.

You guys suggest I go to consumer court. just to make sure they don’t go scathe free on this?