Government Must Look At Easing ESOP Tax For Startups In Budget 2025: Mobikwik's Upasna Taku

Given that startups will soon aid India’s GDP growth, the government must look at simplifying taxation of employee stock ownership plan in the upcoming Budget, Mobikwik’s Chief Financial Officer and Co-Founder, Upasana Taku, said.

An ESOP refers to an employee benefit plan, which offers employees an ownership interest in the entity.

“I believe that there is an opportunity in making ESOP taxation simpler and easier,” Taku told NDTV Profit at the DLAI India Fintech Conclave 2025.

While the government has been a huge supporter of startups, digital payments and fintechs in India, Taku hopes that subsidies and incentives that they provide to fintechs on the merchant or consumer side will be in the upcoming Budget as well.

“On the startup India, there use to be a huge issue of angel tax which has been resolved, but I think the next important issue there is this ESOP tax which discourages employees to use ESOPs,” she said.

There is huge opportunity to distribute financial products to its users in tier-2 and tier-3 cities as they are underserved, Taku said.

In the lending business, Mobikwik already has eight-nine partners and it just added Piramal Capital and Housing Finance for distribution of loan products to its customers, which helps growth, the CFO said.

While Taku acknowledged that there is a slowdown in the distribution of financial products, it is in line with macroeconomic conditions in the country, according to her.

Mobikwik has not been aggressive with merchant acquisition, but has now started scaling that up as well, she said.

“If you see are numbers in Q1 and Q2, we are adding 2 lakh merchants in every quarter to our platform and we are scaling that up as well,” Taku said.