The Daily Rupee, from The IndiaPay Times satire desk. This is satire.
Rate of the day:
₹95.06PLANO, TX. A 27-year-old software engineer submitted his federal tax return at 11:48 PM Thursday, twelve minutes before the extended deadline, after spending the evening searching for a statement his Indian bank had emailed in March to an address he no longer checks, according to a roommate who watched the entire event.
“I told everyone in April that this year I would do it properly,” said Arjun, refreshing his inbox for the ninth time. “The extension is the proper way. It is built into the system. They gave it to us.”
The roommate said the engineer’s records were stored in four folders: Taxes_2025, Taxes_2025_Final, Taxes_2025_Final_Use_This, and Taxes_2025_Final_Use_This_Actually. Only the first contained a tax document. The others held a screenshot of a spreadsheet and a photo of a Costco receipt that Arjun believed “might count as something.”
At 4 AM India time, a WhatsApp message arrived from his mother. It contained a video titled “Five Fruits That Calm the Mind,” followed by “Filed or not?” and, in a separate message, “Also see biodata of Sunita Aunty’s niece. Very settled.”
She later confirmed that Sharma Ji’s son filed in February and received his refund within days. “Very organized boy,” she said. “Nobody has met him, but everyone says.”
At 10:40 PM, the software asked Arjun a question about accounts held outside the country. He paused, then called his father, who had opened an Indian mutual fund in his name years ago “for the boy’s future.”
“It is only a small SIP,” his father said over a crackling line. “Why are you making it a big thing.”
Arjun had also messaged the family CA in India earlier in the week. The CA, who answers only on Sundays, had not yet replied. He is expected to respond this Sunday with a single word: “Noted.”
“Extension deadlines are less a date than a family tradition,” said a senior researcher at an institute nobody could name. “Every household has one person who sincerely believes the last day is the first day.”
After clicking submit, Arjun posted “Done” in the family WhatsApp group. His father replied, “Good. Now do India also.” His mother replied with a photograph of a banana.
Arjun closed the laptop, opened a folder labeled India, looked at it for some time, and closed it again until further notice.
Not satire: if your parents ever started a mutual fund in your name back home, here is what the IRS may think about it. Our guide, The PFIC Trap: The IRS Punishment for Your Indian Mutual Funds, has the real numbers.
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