Paytm Fined With Rs 47.12 Lakhs For Failing to Pay Stamp Duties : Report

Fintech firm Paytm has been fined Rs 47.12 lakh for failing to pay stamp duties for the allotment of equity shares in the previous years.

The fine is imposed on the non-payment of stamp duty which amounts to Rs 1.43 crore upon allotment of 10,26,386 shares of Rs 10 each in previous years, as per a Inc42 report.

The fintech firm claimed that it had submitted all relevant applications on time despite the delays in the submission of a few.

The development comes amid the company being fined multiple times for failing to pay stamp duties for the allotment of equity shares following the exercise of employee stock options (ESOP) granted by the company in previous years.

Paytm had expanded its employee stock option plan by allotting 1,10,357 equity shares to its eligible employees. It has made 4 ESOP offerings so far in 2024. 

Paytm, last month, reportedly received a show cause notice from market regulator SEBI regarding 2.1 crore stock options granted to the company’s founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma in the fiscal year that ended in March 2022.

Paytm has also been going through a tumultuous time this year as RBI hammered its Banking arm, Paytm Payments Bank Limited (PPBL) in March over its failure to comply with RBI’s regulatory guidelines. It also got a warning letter from SEBI over related party transactions with PPBL in FY22, which were conducted without the due approval of either the audit committee or the shareholders.

There are reports circulating that the company is planning to trim its workforce by 15-20 per cent this fiscal year.

In the June quarter of the financial year 2024-25, Paytm’s consolidated net loss widened to Rs 840.1 crore.

The company’s operations revenue also dropped 36 per cent in Q1 FY25 to INR 1,502 crore from INR 2,342 Crore in the corresponding quarter last year.