After paying Rs 92 lakh in tax, laid-off Uber engineer says he plans to leave India

A Reddit user claiming to be an Uber engineer said he was laid off during paternity leave after paying Rs 92 lakh in tax last year. His post cast the loss of a high-paying job as a wider question of severance, family security and faith in the system.New Delhi,Oct 7, 2026 14:39 ISTWhen the question of taxation arises in India, it seldom remains confined to figures in a tax return. It soon finds its way into offices, cafes and, in our own time, the crowded public square of social media. The familiar question - why are we paying taxes?, is often heard when citizens encounter an institution at the moment when they most require its protection.A recent Reddit post by a person claiming to be a senior engineer at Uber has brought that old question into sharper relief.The engineer said that, after reaching what he described as a “salary cliff” last year, he paid Rs 92 lakh in income tax to the Indian government during the previous financial year.The figure is the user's own claim and has not been independently verified. “Being a senior engineer at Uber and hitting the salary cliff last year, I paid a crazy Rs 92 lakhs tax to the Indian Government in last FY,” the user wrote on Reddit.A LAYOFF AT THE TIME OF PATERNITY LEAVEThe engineer then described losing his employment while on paternity leave. “Got laid off this year while I was on 4 months of Paternity leave," he wrote. He also referred to Uber's stated paternity-leave policy, writing that the company provides 18 weeks of official paternity leave. The circumstances of his individual termination, however, cannot be established from the Reddit post alone.For the writer, the immediate difficulty is not merely the loss of employment. He says he has a newborn child to care for and no family assistance, making it difficult to prepare for another job in the coming months.It is here that the post moves from a complaint about employment to a broader argument about financial security.THE DISPUTE OVER SEVERANCEThe engineer said he urgently needs his severance because he cannot immediately devote himself to finding another position. He then expressed his anger at the prospect of taxation on the severance payment.“The Government will again LOOT me through taxing on SEVERANCE as well," he wrote.This, however, is the writer's characterisation rather than an established statement of Indian tax law. The tax treatment of severance or compensation depends upon the nature and terms of the payment and the applicable provisions; it would therefore be misleading to suggest that every severance payment is taxed in an identical manner.It needs to be noted however that this is not a blanket rule under Indian tax law. The tax treatment of severance depends on the nature and terms of the payment.The engineer went further, arguing that India offered insufficient protection to employees and comparing the situation with what he believed would have been possible abroad. That comparison, too, is an expression of his personal view rather than a settled legal conclusion.FROM ONE MAN'S LOSS TO A LARGER ANXIETYThe post nevertheless touches upon an anxiety familiar to many workers in India's technology industry: a well-paid position can disappear with considerable speed, while mortgages, household expenses and family responsibilities remain.Recent layoffs across the global technology industry have made such uncertainty more visible, though the Reddit post itself does not establish any wider trend or prove that highly paid engineers generally face the same circumstances.The writer ultimately announced that he intends to leave India.“I am leaving India soon and would never want to come back.”His final advice was equally direct: “Learn from my mistakes and leave if you want well for your family.”Whether that conclusion represents a wider sentiment among India's technology workers is impossible to determine from a single Reddit post.In that sense, the Rs 92 lakh figure is only the beginning of the story. - Ends