Treelife Resources

A Section 68 notice on share capital is one of the more disorienting pieces of paper a funded startup can receive. You raised money through proper bank channels, from investors who signed subscription agreements and filed their own tax returns, and the Assessing Officer is now asking you to prove…

Maintaining detailed books of account, getting them audited, and then filing an ITR-3 with a profit and loss statement is the default obligation for anyone running a business or profession in India. For a solo consultant billing ₹40 lakhs a year, that compliance stack is disproportionate. Sections 44AD and 44ADA…

Advance tax is one of those compliance items that founders routinely underplan. The business collects revenue, profits build up, and then the March deadline arrives with a tax bill that should have been paid in four tranches starting June. The result is interest under Sections 234B and 234C (now Sections…

Three provisions of the Income-tax Act, 1961 determine whether a business or profession must get its accounts audited under Section 44AB: the gross turnover or receipts threshold, the terms of the presumptive taxation scheme the assessee opted into or avoided, and the basic exemption limit test that governs whether a…

A startup spends its first two years burning cash, building product, and accumulating losses on its books. Those losses are not dead weight. Under the Income Tax Act, 1961, they are a deferred tax asset: a future claim to reduce taxable income once the company turns profitable. Then a VC…

India runs two parallel accounting frameworks for companies. Private unlisted companies below a certain size follow the older Accounting Standards (AS), notified under the Companies (Accounting Standards) Rules, 2021. Companies above the thresholds set by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) follow Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS), notified under the…

BharatPe’s shareholders agreement contained the same clauses that sit in almost every Indian venture-backed SHA: restricted shares, a for-cause clawback, a drag mechanism, and an arbitration clause. What made the Ashneer Grover dispute unusual was not the drafting. It was watching every one of those clauses get tested at once,…

Most Indian B2B contracts signed before 2024 were not written with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 in mind. They have a confidentiality clause, sometimes a data security schedule borrowed from a GDPR template, and almost never a clause that survives a Section 8(2) reading. With the DPDP Rules,…

Most Indian employment agreements assign to the employer everything an employee creates, develops, or invents during employment. That clause was drafted for a world where an employee wrote the code, designed the deck, or drew the artwork directly. It was not drafted for a world where an employee types a…

Every founder who has embedded a third-party AI model into their product has read an indemnity clause that sounds reassuring. The vendor promises to indemnify against claims that its technology infringes a third party’s intellectual property. What that clause does not say, and what most founders do not notice until…

SEBI issued its updated Master Circular for Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) on 03 June 2026, consolidating every circular, clarification, and regulatory change issued under the SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012 up to 31 May 2026. The document runs 153 pages across 25 chapters and supersedes the previous Master Circular…

The Reserve Bank of India held its benchmark repo rate steady at 5.25% at the June 2026 Monetary Policy Committee meeting, unanimously, under Governor Sanjay Malhotra. This is the third meeting in a row that the rate has stayed put, following a run of 150 basis point cuts between February…

India’s Cabinet approved an amendment to Press Note 3 (PN3) of 2020 in March 2026, and it is generating significant attention across the investment and startup community. Headlines have rushed to label it a sweeping FDI liberalisation. The reality is considerably more targeted. This report breaks down exactly what changed,…

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) recently announced a major overhaul to the regulatory framework for Angel Funds under the Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) Regulations, 2012. This new framework, introduced in 2025, aims to enhance transparency, improve operational clarity, and encourage investor participation. In this article, we’ll explore…

In a significant move to invigorate India’s startup ecosystem, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), during its board meeting on June 19, 2025, approved substantial changes to the Angel Fund Framework. These revisions are designed to unlock more capital for early-stage companies while simultaneously ensuring enhanced investor suitability…