Our endeavour is to formulate an ideal tax strategy for our clients, which is compliant with the law, legitimately reduces the tax bills and yet is not prone to invite litigation.

Our specialist tax partners have a responsibility to ensure that every client tax bill is optimised and they do not pay unnecessary taxes. This involves a complete understanding of the ever-changing tax laws which offer in numerable tax optimisation opportunities in the form of deductions, exemptions and claims for losses and expenses. Coupled with an intimate understanding of the clients business and structure the potential tax strategies are formulated, discussed and finalised to minimise the tax bills and having said so, we also recognise the fact that the tax strategy should not be overly aggressive and should not increase client's tax risks so as to plunge them into protracted litigation.

Our tax teams constantly monitor the development of jurisprudence, the statutory pronouncements and the amendments in tax laws, which invariably have far reaching consequences on the client's tax strategies. Our knowledge plays a pivotal role in tax planning, advisory and compliance services.

Our regulatory compliance services ensure that the clients attain a high level of stringent tax law compliances.

The team has a rich experience spanning over 25 years of successfully serving multinational clients in areas of direct taxation in India. With the globalisation and integration of economies, large corporations are operating in different tax regimes with each one of them vying for their share of the corporations profit pie in taxes. The end result can often be paying taxes in multiple tax jurisdictions on the same income. We assist the foreign clients in entity structuring for Indian forays, transaction structuring, advising on the agreements and contracts from tax perspective, understanding and advising on treaty benefits, regulatory compliances and establishing sound global taxation policies.

In India, transfer pricing is a relatively new but a fast emerging field. Transfer Pricing is a complex subject and impacts every area of business - ranging from associated party purchases, sales, financing instruments, loans, investments, marketing, distribution, use of tangible and intangible assets, etc. Multinationals are perceived to be potentially capable of shifting their profits from high tax jurisdictions to low tax jurisdictions with the objective of reducing global tax liability. On this premise the tax regulators view the international transactions between associated enterprises with a lot of scepticism and are able to raise tax issues which have huge tax ramifications. The tax team offer advisory services on transfer pricing documentation which are regulatory compliant. Besides, we also render services in areas of transfer pricing study and statutory reporting and representation before the Transfer Pricing officer.

In India, the field of Indirect taxes is very complex and dynamic since Government makes frequent amendments in these legislations, which are Federal and State specific. Additionally tax positions change due to divergent judicial pronouncements. Acuris provides advisory services in all areas of Indirect Taxes i.e. Service Tax, Customs, VAT/CST, Central Excise & EXIM, thus addressing Federal and State legislation issues simultaneously. This leads to Clients getting a rounded view on business and regulatory issues.

We advise on entry/exit strategies, pricing, supply chain, ERP structure, documentation, drafting including review of various agreements, record keeping, compliances, etc. Particularly in State specific Legislations, like VAT, the Firm is able to address issues arising in all the states of India due to its pan India reach.

Similar to the provisions of Transfer Pricing under Direct Tax, imports of goods into India from related parties are governed by transfer pricing regulations under the Indian Customs Act. Importance of these regulations is manifested by the fact that an adverse ruling would severely jeopardize entire business plans and majorly hurt sales and margins simultaneously.

In this area of practice, Acuris has successfully undertaken numerous assignments for various clients by advising on the entity structure, pricing strategy, drafting and reviewing agreements, documentation, etc. we have also provided assistance by representing our clients before Indian Custom Authorities at all stages and have a history of getting positive rulings.

The Firm provides Retainership services in the areas of Direct and Indirect taxes whereby these functions in the Company get addressed on a day-to-day basis, thus helping our clients to focus only on business. More importantly in a tax arena, knowledge of tax history is very important and we safeguard our clients against any manpower turnover which generally results in breakdown of past tax knowledge. In this area, we take care of advisory, tax calculations, entitlement of tax credits, providing periodic updates in Legislative changes, its impact on business and compliance requirements of our clients.

The dynamic nature of Tax legislations, leads to lot of controversies resulting in disputes with tax authorities. The litigation cost is huge primarily due to multiple appellate levels; conflicting decisions and efflux of time in attaining finality to tax disputes. Such litigations consume a lot of corporate time, cost and leads to business uncertainty.

Acuris has been assisting clients in negotiating through these controversies by making suitable representations at various Appellate and Writ Court levels. We handholds clients through the entire litigation process.

Our experienced team assists clients in:

Identifying key controversial issues in tax conflicts
Representing clients before tax, appellate authorities and writ courts
Preparing submissions before tax, appellate authorities and writ courts
Briefing Senior Counsels on the dynamics of the case
Ensuring implementation of the order