Tax compliance in India has become progressively digital, rule-intensive and deadline-driven following the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2017, the spread of e-filing and the coexistence of two personal income tax regimes. Small and mid-sized chartered accountancy (CA) firms stand between the taxpayer and the portal, yet little primary evidence describes what their clients actually know and how they behave. This paper combines the experience of a two-month internship at Synergy Consulting, a Pune-based CA firm, with a primary survey of 21 clients conducted on 19 October 2026.

The study documents the end-to-end GST and Income Tax filing workflow, works through a GST return and an income tax computation as practical cases, and analyses client profile, filing channel, ITR form choice, awareness of the Old and New Tax Regimes, and willingness to recommend a reliable filing service. Results show that 81.0% of respondents file through the firm, 76.2% are favourably inclined to recommend a reliable filing service (mean score 3.95 out of 5), but only 25.0% are fully aware of the two tax regimes and 50.0% are not aware at all. Awareness of regimes is positively and significantly associated with advocacy (Spearman ρ = 0.53, p = 0.017), whereas years of filing experience is not associated with awareness (ρ = 0.09, p = 0.69). The paper concludes that the firm’s principal opportunity lies in converting routine filing into structured regime-comparison advisory, supported by automation, a compliance calendar and client education. Given the small, purposive sample, findings are indicative rather than generalisable.

Keywords: GST compliance; income tax return; tax regime awareness; chartered accountancy firm; client advocacy; India