Jio Finance’s ₹24 ITR Filing: Innovation or a Blow to Small Players?
a representative image for: Jio Finance’s ₹24 ITR Filing (Image TRH)
Jio Finance Sparks Price War in Tax Services, Small Firms Brace for Impact
By KUMAR VIKRAM
NEW DELHI, August 13, 2025 — Reliance, India’s heavyweight conglomerate, is sending fresh tremors through the financial services sector. Its latest salvo: enabling online income tax return (ITR) filing for the almost unbelievable price of ₹24 via Jio Finance.
The offer is grabbing headlines for making tax filing almost “too cheap to believe,” but observers are asking: what does this mean for competition, innovators, and ordinary consumers in the long run?
Jio Finance now allows users to file their ITRs through its app starting at just ₹24. An expert-assisted option is available for a premium. The app promises easy comparisons, deduction guidance, and end-to-end digital convenience. For users—especially urban professionals and the price-conscious—the lure is obvious: skip traditional accountants and apps charging ₹200–₹2,000, and pay less than a bus ride for tax filing.
Reliance’s playbook should be familiar by now. Enter an industry with ultra-low prices (sometimes even below cost), leverage its vast resources to quickly capture user base, and unsettle core competitors who simply cannot keep pace.
Past Disruptive Moves
Telecom Takeover (Jio): In 2016, Jio launched mobile data at rock-bottom prices, slashing costs from about ₹250/GB to under ₹10/GB in a matter of months. Rivals’ revenues collapsed. Many smaller telecoms folded, merged, or were forced into deep losses as Jio built a dominant market share.
Retail Surge (JioMart): Reliance began offering groceries and daily essentials online, undercutting local kirana stores and e-commerce upstarts. Subsidized delivery and deep discounts squeezed thousands of smaller neighbourhood sellers—many of whom lacked the technological or financial resources to compete.
OTT and Streaming (JioCinema): By bundling movies, sports, and entertainment at near-free prices for Jio subscribers, Reliance made it nearly impossible for smaller streaming services to survive unless they too burned through cash at unsustainable levels.
In all these cases, the first impact is customer delight—cheaper prices, easier access, and rapid uptake. But the long-term effect has repeatedly been market consolidation, with Reliance tightening its control and competitors either folding or exiting entirely.
What Happens to Innovation and Competition?
When one giant can afford to operate at wafer-thin (or negative) margins, it chases smaller innovators and local service providers out of the market. Today’s accountant or tax app developer becomes tomorrow’s “survival story” or, more often, “exit” headline. New startups may think twice. With Reliance scooping up user data and scale, the chance for alternative ideas shrinks.
Logic suggests that such overpowering moves can stifle innovation. Why would a new entrant risk building a better product or service if Big Reliance can just out-price you from the start? Over time, monopoly power allows the leader to dictate prices, terms, and user experience—sometimes at the cost of customer privacy, genuine choice, and healthy competition.
The ₹24 tax filing move is not just about taxes. It’s about locking in tens of millions of users onto one ecosystem. Once onboard, Jio Finance can cross-sell loans, insurance, investments, and payments—further embedding Reliance in daily financial life. The risk? If smaller players are nudged out or forced to sell, India’s consumer landscape may grow ever more dependent on a handful of giants for basic services.
While consumers may celebrate another “cheaper, faster, easier” option, there’s a larger story unfolding about how Indian markets are transformed. Reliance’s latest stunt in the tax filing sector is bold, but it resurrects old concerns about market power, competition, and the cost of convenience.
The lesson from history is clear: when one company plays the disruptor time after time, the rest of the market has little room to breathe—no matter how loud the applause for today’s low prices.
(This is an opinion piece, and views expressed are those of the author only)
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