A buyback is when the company itself repurchases your shares, and its tax treatment in India was changed recently, so old assumptions can be wrong. For a long time the company paid a buyback tax and the amount was tax free in your hands. Under the newer rules the burden can shift, with the buyback proceeds treated more like a dividend taxed in the shareholder's hands at their slab rate, which changes the math a lot for a founder in a high bracket. That means a buyback and a straight secondary sale to a new investor can leave you with very different after tax amounts for the same headline price. Because this area moved recently and the details matter, do not rely on what worked a couple of years ago. Confirm the current treatment for your situation with a CA before you agree to a buyback.
3 resources, 2 India-specific, 2 link-checked.
A practical India-first reference for keeping personal and company finances (and their tax) cleanly separate.
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Open cleartax.in →Zerodha Varsity free module on how investment income is taxed in India: capital gains, holding periods, and turnover, in plain language.
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Open zerodha.com →A calm explainer of what a secondary actually is, who has to approve it, and how the price gets set, before you raise it with your board.
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