In today’s Finshots, we tell you about Jio’s entry into disruptive ITR filing and what that means for your data and wallet.

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The Story

Every tax season in India brings a choice. Some still walk over to the neighbourhood CA who’s handled their returns for years. Others log into the Income Tax Department’s website to DIY it. And an increasing number now open an app to do all the heavy work.

This year, you’ll see JioFinance making that last option almost too tempting to resist. Yeah, Jio has quietly rolled out an income tax return (ITR) filing app service for just ₹24! And it comes with a shiny new AI-powered tax-planning tool built in.

So why is Jio getting into tax filings, you ask?

Well, on the face of it, the timing’s perfect. The ITR deadline for assessment year (AY) 2025–26 is mid-September, online filing is smoother than ever, and younger taxpayers are happy to avoid paper forms and in-person visits. The partner in this case is TaxBuddy, an online tax filing and advisory service, which means the service plugs directly into the government’s filing APIs.

You can file entirely on your own for ₹24, or have an expert assist you for ₹999. Sounds like an unbeatable deal in a market where the next cheapest option starts around ₹49 and CA-assisted filing runs into hundreds or even a thousand rupees.

But here’s the thing. ₹24 barely covers the payment gateway fee for Jio. Because tax-filing platforms have real costs. They need to integrate with application programming interface (APIs), run servers, provide customer support, as well as comply with evolving data laws. In other words, the economics don’t add up if you look at the filing as the end product. And if you go to the fintech strategy side of it, you’ll see it as a loss leader.

A loss leader is something a company sells at a price so low that it either makes no profit on it or actually loses money. On purpose. The idea is to lure customers in with that “too good to be true” price, and then make money later by selling them other, more profitable things.

Now think about Jio. It has the largest mobile network operator in the world, with about 498 million subscribers. So when you file a return with JioFinance, you hand over a goldmine of information: your income, spending patterns, investment habits, property ownership, even your preferred tax regime. That’s exactly the kind of first-party data JioFinancial can feed into its growing universe of products — from mutual funds via its Jio BlackRock AMC, loans and deposits through Jio Payments Bank, to insurance via its new Allianz partnership. And the AI-powered tax planner could also nudge you toward specific investment products or insurance covers. All of which turn that ₹24 transaction into a long-term revenue stream. Plus, the offering sits nicely with the app’s other services, which already has 5 million downloads and about 6 lakh active monthly users.

Now, it’s not only Jio playing this game. Rivals like Quicko, ClearTax, Tax2Win and MyITreturn have already nudged prices downward in recent years, often throwing in free filing for simple cases to pull users into their ecosystems.

But Jio’s pricing and branding is aggressive even by those standards. If this triggers a “race to zero” in pricing, smaller platforms without deep pockets or a ready cross-sell pipeline could get squeezed out. It usually starts when one player drops prices aggressively and others feel they have to match or beat that price to keep their market share. The end result is that everyone’s margins collapse, and the product or service becomes almost free.

A classic Reliance-style disruption.

And if that happens, India’s tax-filing market, and all the financial data it contains, could end up concentrated in just a handful of corporate hands.

Which brings us to another layer of concern. Privacy and consent.

You see, India’s new data protection law — the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 — has been passed, but it’s not fully in force and still in transition. The Act lays out broad principles: companies must collect only as much personal data as necessary, clearly explain why they’re collecting it, keep it secure, and delete it when it’s no longer needed. It also gives users the right to know what data is held about them, and to demand its correction or erasure.

All that sounds solid but the Act’s detailed rules are still in draft form and it does not expressly define what ‘sensitive data’ is. Some enforcements are awaiting notification by the Central Government and the government is working on drafting a subordinate legislation (DPDP Rules 2025) to provide a framework for implementation.

Which means the legal guardrails for how long platforms can store your Form 16, AIS, or bank details, and how they can repurpose that data for marketing, are still a grey area.

So companies can design consent flows in ways that technically tick the compliance box but aren’t exactly user-friendly. And this is where privacy experts warn about “consent fatigue”. It’s that habit of clicking ‘Agree’ just to move on, especially when the service is dirt cheap. Plus, a recent PWC study shows that only 16% consumers in India understand the DPDP Act and 56% aren’t aware of their rights to personal data.

There’s also the trust factor. For many Indians, a CA isn’t just a tax-filer but a financial confidant, someone they believe will act in their best interest. In an app, the lines between advice and product promotion can get blurry. A deduction recommendation might be perfectly legitimate… and also happen to funnel you toward the app’s own investment products. And while that’s not illegal, it’s worth asking whether the advice is neutral or subtly shaped by a sales target.

Of course, there’s an upside for consumers. Competition could make tax filing cheaper and more convenient than ever. The JioFinance app’s regime comparison and deduction-mapping tools could genuinely help users save money, understand their taxes better, and could bring in more unaccounted taxpayers into the system. And for straightforward cases, ₹24 filing is a welcome break from the days when you had to pay a few hundred rupees just to have someone enter numbers into a form.

Nevertheless, the broader takeaway is that in fintech, a price tag isn’t always the full story. When a service is this cheap, the fee is seen as customer acquisition cost. That doesn’t mean you should avoid it entirely. But check what’s included in the services, see how your data will be stored and used, and be alert to when a tax suggestion doubles up as a sales pitch.

As for Jio, if this experiment pays off, it could set off a wave of copycat pricing and cement tax filing as the new UPI. And maybe that might make your next tax return not just a compliance ritual, but the start of a very long marketing journey.

Until then…

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