Startups flag tax, compliance issues in meet with Sitharaman

NEW DELHI: Founders of over two dozen startups flagged issues related to taxation, regulators and compliance during their meeting with commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday.

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The ministry has decided to take up the matter with the departments concerned.

“We were keen to know their views on how their start-up activities are going on, their expectations from the government and the difficulties they have. The difficulties may be relating to various ministries... What is it that they want us to do further,” Sitharaman said. “Sectoral issues were also there on which I have instructed the secretary (of DIPP) to ensure the concerned inter-departmental meetings take place.”

“Most of them talked about reducing the compliance burden in areas like environment, labour and inter-state issues,” an official from the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) said.

For mapmygenome CEO Anu Achrya, resolving compliance issues should be a priority to promote start-ups in the country.

On behalf of e-pharma companies, Practo founder Shashank ND, said that the government should understand their working practices and not think that they are doing something illegal. He said policies should be made keeping their businesses practices in mind, sources present at the meeting told HT.