Aashish Ramchand, co-founder of makemyreturns.com, is a Chartered Accountant by profession. He has also completed the American CFA Level I and is currently a partner at J. Ramchand & Company Tax Advisers. He has previously worked with KPMG and Ernst and Young in the international taxation field.
WD: What is makemyreturns.com all about? What problem are you solving?
Aashish: Makemyreturns.com is the go-to place when it comes to taxes. In this complex world where we practically pay tax on everything we earn or purchase, we bring clarity and simplicity in taxes and help you save wherever possible. Filing taxes is just a year end process, it gives the IT department a snapshot of your earnings and taxes paid, but our work begins at the beginning of every financial year. We understand every single individual case and make recommendations on the various tax saving avenues available to the assessee. Our years of experience in the taxation field have been built into the proprietary algorithms that analyze your financial history and help you save from the word go. We help you plan your taxes, then save them and then finally file them at year-end. We stand by our service and ensure that every customer’s tax problem is our problem.
WD: Tell us the story of how it started and the challenges you have faced?
Aashish: In 2011, my brother and I were having a discussion about the state of affairs in India and how tax compliance is significantly low. We realized that the major roadblock for tax knowledge and compliance in India was the fact that people did not have access to expert tax professional and advisors. We also realized that we had the expertise and there was no better way to bring it to the world than via the Internet. So we founded makemyreturns.com and began the crucial process of understanding core issues faced by the average Indian tax payer and devised methods to solve these problems. The biggest challenge we have faced so far was the mental transition between an online tax advisory and compliance service and our current offline tax advisory practice - the online customer is unknown and we have to quickly understand his problems and come out with a solution.
WD: Who are the Founders and their backgrounds?
Aashish: Our Founder is Vikram Ramchand, a computer science engineer from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta and an MBA from the London Business School. He has founded two successful startups and is now leading the innovation and technology at makemyreturns.com. Co-Founder, Aashish Ramchand, is a chartered accountant by profession with years of experience in International Taxation. He has previously worked with KPMG and Ernst and Young. Aashish builds on the tax knowledge base for makemyreturns.com and trains our junior chartered accountants into giving the best possible customer experience. Co- Founder, VarunAdvani, is a budding Chartered Accountant and works with M.B. Advani and Company. Varun is the brain behind the complex tax algorithms devised at makemyreturns.com.
WD: Why is your site so different when there are already eCommerce websites selling similar products?
Aashish: The key difference between us and other similar websites is the fact that our technology is people and experience driven. We have built and hand picked every aspect of the technology using the years of experience and practical know how of taxes in India. We aim to cut right to the chase and steer clear of complexities and make taxes simple for everyone. We assure every customer that after using makemyreturns.com, tax worries will be a thing of the past. The experts are now here to help.
WD: What technology platform is your site built on? Is it in-house?
Aashish: Makemyreturns.com is built on the .Net Platform and is built by in-house programmers and developers.
WD: Which locations is it available ?
Aashish: Virtually, we are available everywhere due to the Internet. But our head office is located in Mumbai.
WD: Did you raise any funding? If you want to raise funds do you want to be contacted by Investors ?
Aashish: Yes, we raised initial funding through certain venture capitalists. We will be raising another round of funds sometime early next year.
WD: What is the overall plan going forward?
Aashish: Help more and more people plan and save taxes regularly. Taxes don’t need to be taxing. We’re there for that.
If you have any questions for Aashish, please post it on the comments section. He is reachable at [email protected]. You can also connect with Aashish on Linkedin.
Pin It
