Indian IT Industry

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Nov 2013 15:38

http://profit.ndtv.com/news/corporates/ ... herstories

sum · Post by **sum** » 21 Nov 2013 15:59

^^ Saw this mail forwarded by my Bosch buddies but couldnt make much out of this ( though they all said they had first-hand experienced the same, whether in US or Germany).

Whats this tax refund business about?

Is this comment true? Didnt get what he is telling though. Really weak in financial lingo, i guess

The company is a fool, they did something wrong against you? They withold US taxes, but you claim to be a Indian Citizen based on your passport and hence it's your liability to pay Indian taxes and avoid US taxes. The Company will withhold your US taxes as per IRS code, and when you file US tax return, you get the refund and return it to the company, because you pay the Indian taxes and hence not liable to pay US taxes, so the company wants that money back. IRS won't refund the money to your employer, so you need to return that money to your employer, for taxing purposes, you are a Indian working abroad. Nothing wrong with that. Tax witheld is not your money, because the IRS refunded that amount to you. You work in USA but you'll pay taxes in India and you want the US tax withheld by your employer too. Nice trick, but won't work in the Federal Court, I'll testify as a Amicus curiae..

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 21 Nov 2013 16:23

basically wants the tax refund which US holds back , even though he doesnt pay tax in US , but pays in india.

but not sure whether thats how it works , as its his money which is being held back

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 21 Nov 2013 18:02

if the guy is on H1/L1 the equation is simple - he earns a salary in US and TDS is deducted there. any refund is his. the would not be paying any tax in india. company withholding taxes means he is on a salary there.
if he is on B1 (how for so long?) he should not be paid any salary there.
indian taxes is nowhere in the pic.

SBajwa · Post by **SBajwa** » 22 Nov 2013 01:53

Typically U.S Tax withholds are everytime you get your salary check. Depending upon your exemptions.

1. Federal government taxes (about 12-17%)
2. State government taxes (5-8%)
3. Local where living tax (1-2%).
4. Local where employed tax ($10-$50 per year)
5. Social Security withholds (x%)
6. Medicare Tax (x%).

Typically it comes to about 30% of your wages, so government takes 30% of your salary before you get the money (every pay period)

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 22 Nov 2013 09:56

the guy surely consulted a lawyer and filed the case through him.
assuming he is not by some miracle also earning a salary in india from bosch while on H1/L1 with bosch over there...
if tax withholdings were more than needed, the IRS will refund and it belongs to the guy whose salary it is , not the company - tax refund is a matter between the individual and the IRS. the payee (employer) just helps out the IRS by TDS.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 22 Nov 2013 10:29

I remember TCS landing in some trouble on some tax refund issue. But if my memory serves me right, it was TCS asking employees to give back the tax refunds to TCS or some thing like that. This was at least 5-6 years back.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 23 Nov 2013 19:19

Hmm gloat about working 20 hours a day.... and die at 40 of stress? Tough choice.

Burnout rate spikes as India Inc battles stress

Correct me if I am wrong, but my theory is that the reason is Indian IT largely makes money doing coolie work for the US. There is no internal India market. Overall the local market component is very small, companies like Flipkart and others. But Netz, Chacha in BLR, TaklaCo just take up some projects that the US offices cannot do or don't want. So it all comes down to billing rate and squeezing the most out of employees just to show their worth and please the gora.

Gradually Indian workers in India will realize that life is not all about walking around as an "IT Professional", staying 20 hours a day in the office and leaving the kids at the in laws and not seeing the spouse for days on end. They will realize the need to slow down, and enjoy life.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 23 Nov 2013 19:43

KJoishy wrote:Gradually Indian workers in India will realize that life is not all about walking around as an "IT Professional", staying 20 hours a day in the office and leaving the kids at the in laws and not seeing the spouse for days on end. They will realize the need to slow down, and enjoy life.

This has already started happening. Three cases which immediately strike my mind, is a colleague who floated a furniture & antique firm, my own room mate (and IT worker) who decided to quit and has now multiple business operations at his home town. And another lady who decided to work as a contractor - on her terms on working hours/week. And the best part is that all the three has pretty much good income, and seems to have a good work life balance.

Gus · Post by **Gus** » 23 Nov 2013 20:46

in TCS and prolly many other indian companies, it was the norm (not returning tax refunds). i think it has changed now..

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 23 Nov 2013 23:18

Can't say about others, but at my place it is prohibited to display corporate badges/ID cards in public places. Corporate security will penalize such individuals.
But girls and boys get away with flaunting the neck lanyard anyway.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 24 Nov 2013 04:07

Sachin wrote:I remember TCS landing in some trouble on some tax refund issue. But if my memory serves me right, it was TCS asking employees to give back the tax refunds to TCS or some thing like that. This was at least 5-6 years back.

You remember correctly. I am not sure whether TCS was fined by either GOTUS or GoI for this. A case was filed in US (IIRC).

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 24 Nov 2013 13:26

^^^^
According to some people I talked to, the deal works like this. Company X tells the SDRE techie that they are going to pay him, say, salary of $50K per year (net pay). This is the key, they promised "net pay", not "gross pay". Then they put the techie on the boat and send him to the land of opportunity and they say that since you're on assignment, we will take care of US taxes for you. Therefore, they tell the INS that he's employed with salary of (say) $75K and deduct the appropriate taxes every paycheck, so that by the end of the year, said SDRE gets a total of $50K, as promised by his agreement with the company. Using this logic, Company X claims that any tax refunds are due to them, since they paid the techie the salary they agreed to ($50k).

Now the real fun part comes if the SDRE techie asks the internal revenue service for a tax-refund, since he is not an American citizen. The refund comes back in the techie's name and he is expected to return that refund back to company X.

The real scam is the fact that company X told the INS that they're paying the techie a salary of $75K, when the techie effectively gets $50K and company X collects back any tax refunds at the end of the year. This allows them to shamelessly tell the INS that they're paying the techie a salary comparable to an American programmer (assuming that the going market rate for that position is $75k) when they actually are not, therefore justifying any visa paperwork. This trick is apparently used by quite a few companies.

<disclaimer>All this is based on conversation with a couple of people and I don't know 100% if it is true or not. I'm not a lawyer or an accountant and neither are the people I talked to.</disclaimer>

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Nov 2013 17:04

>> Now the real fun part comes if the SDRE techie asks the internal revenue service for a tax-refund, since he is not an American citizen.

he has to pay taxes just like any H1 or L1 - same rate as US citizen.

so why cant they stop this tamasha by calculating a gross salary which after taxes & exemptions will exactly yield 50k as net and stop this confusion ? looks like that would yield a salary HIGHER than 50k because they are bound to pay the prevailing of 75k...so they want to show paying prevailing wage but want to pocket the diff between 50k and the 50K+refund.

clearly cheapskate tactics at work here......and its illegal also as they honestly need to pay prevailing wage not enter these pvt contracts with employees that ends up in them virtually getting a gross less than the prevailing .

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 24 Nov 2013 20:27

Not sure but the confusion could be this. For those that come on H1 etc, the H1 visa is a category probably meant for American Companies to hire foreign personnel at prevailing wages, when they cannot find local people to fill in. They have to demonstrate that for each case.

Whereas what Indian companies like TCS are doing is using this to ship people from India to US sites for "short-term" work. The right way to do this is for them to have a local subsidiary which hires these employees directly. I thought they were doing that, perhaps not ?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 25 Nov 2013 06:54

short term or long term does not matter. if they are generating US payslips and filing US tax return need to be on H1 or L1. even if for 1 week.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 25 Nov 2013 07:33

Short term is <= 3 mo. In fact there used to be only two visas for business/visting B1 and H1 - oh man, I am letting the cat out of the bag re. my age (not a problem - I have done it on several occasions on BRF

) - in late 70's to '81-82. B1 was visitor's visa and H1 was work visa. Then they combined these two to create a visa called H1B. Anybody with this visa had to file a 1040 (EZ or someother IRS form no matter) even if she is paying zero taxes.

Bade · Post by **Bade** » 25 Nov 2013 07:47

Aha, that explains it and thanks for removing my cobwebs on this H1B monkey wrench. I kind of drifted through the process as the Univ had to do it for me, without learning the intricacies. So the Indian companies basically exploited the loophole of combining the H1 and B1 categories and flooded the market with their people. I guess the US did not see it coming

when they amended the laws or was lobbied into doing it by the very same US companies who wanted to outsource their work to cheaper locations.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 25 Nov 2013 21:27

TCS is apparently going to consolidate its 23K employees scattered in various HYD offices into a new 26k seats campus.

Vikas · Post by **Vikas** » 25 Nov 2013 21:58

Atleast TCS paid them some money. Some companies, on L1-B visa pay nothing to the employees in US, excuse being that on LI-B you don't need to be on payroll. They make same amount of money as any other person on H1-B but save all the money under the garb of this loophole.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 26 Nov 2013 00:55

I think the same thing is (was?) happening in Bangalore.

Backlash by the bay: Tech riches alter San Francisco

But a nerve had been struck. As the center of the technology industry has moved north from Silicon Valley to San Francisco and the largess from tech companies has flowed into the city — Twitter's stock offering unleashed an estimated 1,600 new millionaires — income disparities have widened sharply, housing prices have soared and orange construction cranes dot the skyline. The tech workers have, rightly or wrongly, received the blame.

Resentment simmers, at the fleets of Google buses that ferry workers to the company's headquarters in Mountain View and back; the code jockeys who crowd elite coffeehouses, heads buried in their laptops; and the sleek black Uber cars that whisk hipsters from bar to bar. Late last month, two tech millionaires opened the Battery, an invitation-only, $2,400-a-year club in an old factory in the financial district, cars lining up for valet parking.

For critics, such sights are symbols of a city in danger of losing its diversity — one that artists, families and middle-class workers can no longer afford. On the day of Twitter's public offering this month, 150 demonstrators protested outside the company with signs reading "People not profit" and "We're the public, what are you offering?"

More and more longtime residents are being forced out as landlords and speculators race to capitalize on the money stream.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 26 Nov 2013 06:49

it must have happened in the past in areas of NYC and LA too, beverly hills could have been a orange plantation or vegetable farm maybe. steve jobs biography talks about some of these old silicon valley areas...the US does not allow urban villages, or slums to exist unlike india and the pop is smaller ... so the effect is more visible there. here, outside a gated community with HNIs , there could be a shantytown of construction workers or a unruly urbanized village with a pot holed road leading to the villa compound

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 26 Nov 2013 07:33

^^^They had these shanty slums all the way near fringes of SF and some probably still survive. But on the whole, especially the western side of the Bay Area is pretty chi-chi. Just yesterday while on the trail, we were marveling at the fact that despite being so 'densely' populated, the Bay Area has huge swaths of wide open empty natural spaces with nothing for miles around....heck we were in Mountain View and could see Stan madrassa way out in Palo Alto.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 30 Nov 2013 03:17

Sachin wrote:Folks! Is really Hadoop a hot-cake in the market? Especially for people with the usual java/j2ee experience?

I don't know how that can be true. Java and J2ee is application level architecture and mostly used in frameworks for web, middle tier layers.

Hadoop is an open source layer to search/query/update/insert data into unstructured data. Lot of hype around it and there is also lot of real buzz as well. The real buzz is because of the fact that a lot of data is getting created due to web 2.0++. All this data that comes from twitter, facebook type stuff is really not easy to give a structure in the form of relational stuff. Hadoop is good at using the data as is without saving it to a format.

It is part of the whole bigdata domain. However, a lot big folks who are in this domain are writing their tools on top of Hadoop so that it remains invisible to high level languages. For example, SQL Server 2012 parallel datawarehouse uses hadoop underneath. You can still write the plain old SQL.

I am working on Greenplum since last 2.5 years. Gone through all the new technology intricacies and finally was able to put a 100TB relational MPP data structure. (no hadoop usage as we are using structured data). Terradata is the best in the field though it s expensive. Greenplum is good in large data movement but not good in query retrieval.

Learning Hadoop will put in the center of current market. It is not a hype as market is more into cloud, collecting unstructured data and a lot of analytics. Analytics is the real thing that is happening in application space. Read the EC article I posted in GDF assembly elections thread.

I consider myself fortunate as accidentally I got into serious architecture role of big data platform. I would suggest to take the opportunities of Big Data and/or hadoop to be in cutting edges of future.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 01 Dec 2013 10:37

All you cool dudes making eyes at PYTs in desh, be afraid.

A 498A type of law will be on its way, you look at a underling PYT and if you don't give her a promotion and 50% raise, you will find yourself in the slammer.

India Inc rushes to set up panels to deal with sexual harassment cases

For the past few months, a bunch of women has been getting together at the office cafeteria of an IT firm after work. The men steer clear of these exclusive monthly huddles where the women discuss everything from the state of toilets to the unnerving stare of "that guy" in the office.

"Initially, it was just one woman talking about how she felt uncomfortable at the way he looked at her. Immediately, a couple of others said that they too felt the same," says an employee. The matter went to the HR head who calls it the first successful outcome of organizing a town hall for women. "I could take action before things got too far," says the manager.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 01 Dec 2013 11:59

things will resemble Minority report and "thoughtcrime" in Equilibirum before drifting back to the middle
HR certified Grammaton Clerics taking out cube farms of engineers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPuAKVnqJdk

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 02 Dec 2013 02:25

As witb rape laws, how do you frame harassment policies without it being used to victimise men? Tough!

Rahul Mehta · Post by **Rahul Mehta** » 02 Dec 2013 06:31

Prasad wrote:As witb rape laws, how do you frame harassment policies without it being used to victimise men? Tough!

TRIVIAL. But OST

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 08 Dec 2013 02:17

People can work only so many productive hours consistently. After that it just becomes hanging around surfing the web pretending to be "working".
It's good that realization about work life balance is setting in.

Six not sexy: Executives reject jobs with no weekend

Weekends at work may soon be a thing of the past, say staffing experts claiming that Indian managerial-level employees are rejecting job offers from companies that operate six days a week.

According to Executive Access, an executive search firm, about 50% candidates today ask for a job that offers them a five-day work week. Five to seven years ago, this number was at 20%. The data cuts across industries and clearly points to how employees are taking charge of their lives by setting aside more time for personal matters.

"Earlier, 15% of candidates would decline to work for a company that offers them a six-day work week. Today, that percentage has increased to 30-40%," said Ronesh Puri, MD, Executive Access. "Candidates do not mind working longer hours from Monday to Friday, but they don't like being called to work on weekends. Bosses who ask employees to work on weekends usually see higher attrition," said Puri.

A few reasons are fuelling this trend. For one, managers are working extra hard and putting in longer hours during the week, leaving them with little time to attend to personal matters. Secondly, stress levels at the workplace are increasing, so employees want to take their weekends to unwind and come back re-energized on Monday.

"We see that there is an increasing demand for 'five-day week jobs' from women and mature employees, that is, those employees in middle and senior level management (aged between 35 and 65). Our research studies indicate that mature employees accord greater value to work-life balance as compared to younger employees," said Moorthy K Uppaluri, CEO, Randstad India. According to Randstad, many candidates have said that their workload has increased when compared to 2012 and the boundaries between their work and personal life are merging. Its research inferences also show that over 80% of the people use weekends to attend to personal matters. "Due to heavy workload and associated stress, we find more and more candidates looking out for those jobs that are not only meaningful and challenging but also allow them to pursue other areas of interest outside of work," said Uppaluri.

With candidates themselves becoming more vocal about the need for a proper work-life balance, Randstad India says over the last couple of years, they have seen a noticeable shift in employees' working patterns. "Today, the workplace mantra is 'work smart, not long'. Staying late in office and putting in long hours is not the sign of a workaholic anymore; it demonstrates inefficiencies caused by increasing workload," said Uppaluri. According to a Randstad Award survey conducted this year, good work-life balance ranked 4th among the top 10 factors people consider while choosing a job. Other factors include competitive salary and employee benefits, long-term job security, career progression opportunities and pleasant working atmosphere.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Dec 2013 10:28

netz is losing bright freshers 1-2 yr exp from premier instts to cos like flipkart/amazon. they get more real work without n dependencies and pkg is around 15L/pa.

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 09 Dec 2013 11:46

Wow !! Phaneesh claims the company had consented to his consensual relationship ! I wonder if his wife had consented as well

Phaneesh Murthy sues iGate for defamation

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 09 Dec 2013 11:49

Singha wrote:netz is losing bright freshers 1-2 yr exp from premier instts to cos like flipkart/amazon. they get more real work without n dependencies and pkg is around 15L/pa.

I thought average was more like 18-20L/pa for Eye Eye Tea and other top ITvity school bacchas?

sum · Post by **sum** » 09 Dec 2013 12:10

Wow.....freshers get 15L/annum on Indian payscale for these cos or is this $ converted figure?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Dec 2013 12:26

in india sir. I am talking about decent freshers from non-IIT backgrounds with 1-2 yrs prior exp.
in IITs they might offer 2-4L more to fresh UGs to preserve the glamour factor and compete with other day1 hirings.

seems even the iit-b founder of Ola cabs showed up in his alma mater this yr of day1 looking to hire 20 people "not necessarily the best academically but with the raw ability to take risk" .... so maybe he has other ventures in the pipeline as well apart from back end work in Ola.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Dec 2013 12:29

Arjun wrote:Wow !! Phaneesh claims the company had consented to his consensual relationship ! I wonder if his wife had consented as well

Phaneesh Murthy sues iGate for defamation

I posted his frank interview with TOI in the L&M thread yesterday.
I wanted to go over it line by line with SHQ but she was too tired after a day of baking cakes for a charity event to pay much attention

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 10 Dec 2013 13:45

KJoishy wrote:People can work only so many productive hours consistently. After that it just becomes hanging around surfing the web pretending to be "working".
It's good that realization about work life balance is setting in.

Yes. I think the stress is now getting realised/understood all across the board. Things would become much better if the Indian IT professionals also learn how to "plan" their work and execute it. Rather than stretching long hours, in a hope that management would take that as "commitment", "devotion to duty" etc. Secondly, the younger crowd also seems to take up some good hobbies. Cycling, travelling etc. etc. They too have come out of the mind set that, there is nothing to do on a week end, so let us all be in the office only. The exceptions are generally the IT folks (most of them now senior managers) of the late 1995 vintage.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 24 Dec 2013 09:57

How is the IT recruitment in middle management positions these days? xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Is it because of the vacation season (X'Mas and all)?

negi · Post by **negi** » 24 Dec 2013 10:59

There are openings in ITVTY for middle management positions it's just that they are in specific/niche areas. I always get pinged by our talent manager to get them some lead referrals in my area as they cannot do that directly (some poaching nonsense) .

I think the avg figure for annual package for IIT grads in mid-large product cos is around 8-10ish per anum . MSFT, Intel and Chacha pay on higher side but those are outliers. Workday, linkedin , Flipkart types blwo hot and cold .

IITians in any case are happy to get some neat pocket money and a nice brand name on resume while they prepare for their GRE , honestly it's a right thing to do cause I think we have freshers in surplous supply here.

Sachin · Post by **Sachin** » 24 Dec 2013 11:30

Marten wrote:Most of the positions we see are for smaller organizations with barely enough funds to last them a year. The mid tier cos are struggling, no matter what the big 4 say.

The Big.Cos are also struggling if I get it right. Getting the right people is becoming a big challenge for them as well.

For our specific skills and certifications, the market will probably open up by January second week, assuming budgets have expanded this year. If not, expect hiring to remain flat and most jobs to be filled in via referrals/networking.

For our specific skills - did you mean the skills which me and you have, or did you mean some thing related to the skill set required in your organisation?

negi · Post by **negi** » 24 Dec 2013 11:40

^ Well I can only speak about things as I see them in my company, our team was just 20 until Q1 2012 now we are 40 so that is pretty decent hiring rate. R&D dept in our company hires at even higher rate at least for last 2-3 years things have really picked up we went from 4-5 products to like 10+ (most of them acquisitions ).