Keep two things separate in your head. Salary is pay for the work you do now, so if you are both working full time it usually makes sense to draw similar salaries regardless of who had more savings to fall back on. The money each of you put into the company is capital or a loan, and that gets recognised on the cap table or as a documented loan, not by paying one founder a bigger monthly cheque. Mixing the two, higher salary for the richer founder, muddies both your finances and your equity story, and it can breed resentment. Agree the salary logic openly and write down how each founder's contribution is being treated. Capital contributions, loans, and salaries each carry different tax and accounting treatment, and the rules change, so confirm the clean structure with a CA. Fair and legible beats clever here.
2 resources, 2 India-specific, 1 link-checked.
A practical India-first reference for keeping personal and company finances (and their tax) cleanly separate.
From ClearTax by ClearTax
Open cleartax.in →A no-nonsense, ad-light India personal-finance site: plain math and free calculators for emergency funds, goals, and asset allocation, with no product to sell you.
From Freefincal by M. Pattabiraman
Open freefincal.com →The same ground, over in Money, pricing & model, our Starting Up track.
