Budget2016: Women entrepreneurs want relaxed taxation

The startup wave is going strong in India and at the centre of it are women entrepreneurs driving businesses. The budget allocation due Monday, entrepreneurs are out with high expectations from easing of policies, access to capital and allocation of resources and more.  These demands are even more significant after the well received StartupIndia campaign led by the Prime Minister himself earlier this year.

Swati Bhargava of cash back website, CashKaro wants implementation talk. She wants to see measurable timeslines in promises to entrepreneurs. “Aspects like the fund-of-funds, tax benefits which are great on paper, needs to get implemented. I would like the budget to set out clear and measurable timelines with minimal bureaucratic intervention and not keep it as vague as it is now. Being an affiliate site we hope the government will present a tax policy that will address the complications of the current tax structure faced by ecommerce sites. We also hope that the GST roadmap will be shared in the budget for FY 2016-17.”

At the Startup India campaign event, the government promised over 2000 founders of start-ups present - such as Nidhi Aggarwal of Karyaah, Swati, Radhika Aggarwal of Shopclues -  amendments in government policy to encourage enterprise and ease of doing business.

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Talking about the specifics of the taxation policies, Kaaryah's Nidhi Aggarwal wants to see clarity on Tax, FDI and GST. “As an online retailer, 100% FDI, and a transparent tax regime will make it easier for us to raise funds as well as to sell our product across countries. Service charges paid by ecommerce companies to market places attract service tax as well as sales tax under the current laws. We'd like to see some changes there especially as marketplaces onboard small, new retailers like us,” says Aggarwal.

Some entrepreneurs feel the budget needs to go deeper and talk of fundamental changes for the economy. That women’s education should be a main focus in the budget session. “My belief is that a fixed chunk of the budget has to be kept aside for educating the women folk (education), educating them about entrepreneurship, training, empowering them, providing them with skills and initial capital to begin their set up,” asserts Ruchika Gupta, Gulabs.in.

These entrepreneurs are fast becoming contributors in the economic growth of the country have set their own expectations. Hopefully the finance minister will see merit in putting on track some of the headline promises made at Startup India to get the ball rolling with support of funds.

Picture Credit- Morgan Mckinley