Microsoft and your tax returns
Making assessees file returns in proprietary Microsoft Excel format is unfair
Statistics released by the Income Tax department show that by September 30, 2013, more than 17 million Indians filed individual tax returns online. That's a 41 per cent jump over the same period last year. E-filing is bound to increase in the years to come given that online filing of income tax is mandatory for a lot of us as per government guidelines.
As we all know, the process of e-filing taxes is now pretty easy. Download the relevant form from the income tax e-filing website, key in the details, click buttons to validate, calculate taxes and upload the generated returns file. One can also pay taxes online.
But there is a small problem. Something many of us probably know by now. The forms are in Microsoft Excel file format.
The Excel macro feature used in tax forms released by the Income Tax department means that free software such as OpenOffice, LibreOffice, etc. that otherwise support Microsoft Excel files, not to mention cheaper alternatives from Microsoft itself, like MS Office Starter Edition cannot be used on those forms.
In short, any tax payer trying to file income tax online in India has a fairly expensive dependency on Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Windows.
It helps if one has access to the software at ones place of work or at a friends place.
Also, software piracy is a reality in India. But that is neither a suggested option nor part of the calculation in any case. So, this is a classic case of single-vendor dependency. The question is, why?
Notable numbers
At present, each individual needs to shell out close to Rs 5,500 to have a legal copy of the cheapest version from Microsoft that might do the work Microsoft Home & Student Edition. Buying MS Excel alone would be costlier at around Rs 6,800.
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Microsoft and your tax returns