NewDelhi: A viral salary comparison by an X user highlighting that a lower remote salary often beats a high CTC in take-home pay has sparked widespread discussion online. The X post claims that a remote contractor earning Rs 36 lakhs can make higher monthly cash than a Google employee earning Rs 62 lakhs because of high stock vesting components and taxes on huge CTCs which allows the remote contractor to net higher liquidity.
Devaansh Bhandari, founding engineer at Y Combinator-backed startup Wavelength, shared on X that one of his friends earns Rs 62 lakh CTC at Google and another is a remote contractor making Rs 36 lakh. He said that 62 lakh appears to be nearly twice as much as Rs 36 lakh on paper but the contractor may end up with higher monthly liquidity.
Bhandari explained that in big tech companies like Google, a large portion of the package consists of stocks and bonuses rather than direct cash. He broke the Rs 62 lakh package into parts with around Rs 22 lakh as base salary, about Rs 35 lakh in stock grants spread over four years and nearly Rs 5 lakh as a bonus. This structure means that the actual annual taxable income is Rs 30 to 32 lakhs. After taxes, the monthly in-hand is between Rs 1.5 and 1.8 lakhs.
The remote contract employee earning Rs 36 lakhs is largely paid out as direct cash which improves monthly liquidity. Under Section 44ADA of the IT Act, the remote contractor can declare only 50 percent of income as taxable. Therefore, he pays Rs 2 lakhs in tax and retains a monthly income of about Rs 2.7 to 2.9 lakhs.
Bhandari said that the final comparison of real cash is that the Google employee earning Rs 62 lakhs makes Rs 1.5 to 1.8 lakhs per month while the remote contractor earning Rs 36 lakhs makes Rs 2.7 to 2.9 lakhs per month. He says that tax structure matters more than headline salary. He claims that to match Rs 36 lakh remote cash flow one will need Rs 50 lakh in addition to base salary in India.
Netizens React
The post triggered widespread discussion online with users debating about compensation structures, taxation and real income.
One user wrote, “Also on site job are in big cities (like bangalore) where cost of living is also high. Remotely you can work from your hometown, which is low cost (no rent, own home, no food cost).”
Another commented, “Remote one would get more benefit with currency devaluation.”
A user said, “Google RSU vesting is monthly, so you can liquidate asap. But yeah this schedule differs company to company.”
A user said, “The practice of quoting 4 years of RSU as the upfront CTC is pretty new to me personally. Nobody compares offers like that.”
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