It was in the summer of 2009, a team of eight childhood friends launched a company with focus on creativity.

It did not take even 24 hours for their company named Foradian Technologies Pvt Ltd (which was based in Mangalore then) to launch the rupee (₹) font when India announced a symbol for rupee on July 15, 2010.

Now the company is entirely focusing on providing enterprise software solutions for education institutions with its product Fedena.

When Business Line asked what the start-ups like Foradian Technologies want in the Union Budget 2014, Unni Koroth, Chief Executive Officer of the company, replied that tax exemption and relaxation in policies to start-ups, that are in growth phase, are expected from the budget.

He quoted the examples of companies such as Infosys and Wipro for this. These companies had enjoyed tax holidays, which, in turn, boosted the growth of information technology sector in India.

“From a start-up/SME CEO point of view, I want to see the introduction of Goods & Services Tax (GST). The move from the present complex tax structure to a simpler GST will be of real advantage to companies like us,” he said.

When GST is implemented, firstly there will be uniform tax for service and sales. This will eliminate the confusion and disputes that the companies are facing. Today some software providers are charging both taxes (VAT and service tax) as a conservative approach and this also will stop, he said.

“Secondly, GST will bring down the compliance cost for companies. Thirdly cost of services will come down since we can take credit for the input tax and set off that against the tax we collect,” he said.

For the Government, simplified structure means increased compliance by tax payer and increased collection, he said.

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