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TAX & REGULATORY SERVICES
Direct taxation in India broadly refers to the Income Tax and Wealth tax laws which involve personal tax, corporate tax, minimum alternate tax, capital gains tax, international tax and transfer pricing.
We offer services in each of the above-mentioned areas of tax and regulatory compliance.
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
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GST ADVISORY SERVICES
The current complex indirect tax structure in India has been an area of prime concerns for many businesses. Owing to the cascading effect of multiple indirect taxes at multiple levels, business operations in India have been designed to optimize these indirect taxes.
The proposed implementation of GST in India is a business transforming event which would require a relook at the way business is done in India. One nation - One market is what the GST is aiming to achieve and hence it is imperative for businesses to be ready for a smooth transition into the GST regime.
We offer host of services to our clients ranging from GST Policy Advocacy to GST Advisory to GST Compliance under one roof. Working closely with them, we play a role of a catalyst in accepting the impending change as also act as a bridge between our clients and the GST Policymakers.
We assist clients in helping them understand the impact that GST would have on their business operations. Having identified the key impact areas, we then advise them in designing the new business processes covering all aspects of the change that is expected and formulate strategies for changing the business operating models for optimising the GST impact.
Our experienced team members who have hands on knowledge on typical supply chains assist clients in identifying tax saving opportunities and handhold them for a smooth transition to the new tax regime.
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TRANSACTION – TAX & LEGAL ADVISORY
Every transaction has a tax component and major aspect for success in completing the deal depends upon how efficiently it is structured from a tax and legal perspective. Since the Firm has dual expertise in the areas of tax and legal, this objective is easily achieved under one roof, resulting in a higher success rate.
Documentation
The Firms is fully equipped to undertake all forms of documentation, for e.g.
Drafting of term sheet
Drafting letters of intent
Consent letters
Share purchase agreements
In addition the Firm also assists in getting all pre and post transaction approvals from various statutory and regulatory authorities
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DUE DILIGENCE
Our core transaction support team has vast experience of both buy and sell-side mandates. We have expertise in validating all business, financial, tax and legal aspects of the transaction. Through this comprehensive study, the client gets complete visibility on various aspects of the business.
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BUSINESS ADVISORY & RE-STRUCTURING
In India the supply chain model gets exposed to multiple taxes at federal, state and local body level. It thus becomes very important to develop a simplified and tax neutral supply chain model, which contributes to growth and enhanced profitability.
Acuris's multi-faceted team offers specialized service in designing a supply chain model which results in tax saving and provides advice on appropriate documentation to address tax and regulatory issues.
For every organization it is imperative to constantly visit all areas of business for improving efficiencies and achieving economies of scale. Some examples of pain points could be sales, operations, supply-chain, administration, personnel cost, etc.
Panel of Experts of professionals has the requisite expertise in looking at each and every aspect of business for identifying problem areas and coming out with practical and economically viable solutions to address these problems. While undertaking this activity the team follows a structured approach so as to deliver time bound solutions which are well documented for future reference.
Our professionals assist clients in developing and implementing the solutions to improve profitability, cash flows, liquidity, and right-size the balance sheet items. Working with all levels of management to help create strategic and operational plans to turn around under performing businesses.
Acuris undertakes specific management reviews for addressing various tax issues. These reviews are undertaken with an objective of increasing profitability, effectively reducing impact of taxes, increasing availability of tax credit, determining adherence to government regulations, ERP system reviews, etc.
We has successfully undertaken these reviews for various clients and brought substantial savings and changes in the business because we always strive to understand the business first and then determine implication of taxes.
Incorporating a new business entity in India, involves lot of planning and adherence to various legislative and regulatory requirements. Additionally the entity has to be housed in a tax efficient structure like Pvt. Ltd Company, LLP, Branch/Liaison/Project offices, etc, for maximizing shareholder returns. We assists clients in achieving this twin objective by advising them on the optimum structure and handholding them through various tax and statutory compliances.
The finance and accounting processes of businesses are getting complex and challenging with more and more regulatory pronouncements and standards coming into effect. Corporates are outsourcing various finance and accounting processes with a view to streamline respective processes and obtain consistency, uniformity and stronger controls.
We offer accounting and related processes services to clients who either do not wish to create their own capabilities or are looking for competitive and professional solutions for their accounting and related processes. A large number of multinational clients prefer to outsource various accounting and related processes in order to save on costs and the avoid taking responsibility of engaging multi level full-time finance and accounting professionals. Our approach towards outsourced assignments involves gaining a complete understanding of clients requirements which forms the bedrock of assignment implementation plan, designing process plan, assessing resource requirements, deploying adequate resources, performing the desired functions, constant monitoring by team leaders, generating client deliverables and timely client reporting. All engagements are lead by a Partner to ensure quality assurance.
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CORPORATE FINANCE ADVISORY
We provide strategic advice and execution services to corporates for enhancing the value in their growth strategies. Our specialist's work actively with private equity, venture capital and other investors and lenders to arrange financing and complete transactions for our clients.
Corporate finance advisory services include:
Business modelling
Funding assistance
Identifying Investors and Private equity partners
Strategic & general corporate advice
Project finance & public private partnerships
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VAT IN GCC
VAT has been introduced in two countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council ('GCC') and the remaining countries in the GCC have expressed their intention to implement it in their respective countries either by end of 2018 or early 2019. We assist clients in helping them understand the impact that VAT would have on their business operations. Having identified the key impact areas, we then advise them in designing the new business processes covering all aspects of the change that is expected and formulate strategies for changing the business operating models for optimising the VAT impact. The following are the broad categories of services which we offer in the realm of VAT in GCC:
We guide our clients in identifying potential risk area and related opportunities under VAT regime. We conduct VAT impact assessment studies in order to identify key areas of impact and design solutions to optimise the impact.
We assist Clients in transitioning to VAT and carry out extensive sessions for all the stakeholders to make them ready for VAT. We handhold the Clients in the journey towards embracing the "once in a lifetime change".
We help clients to outsource the VAT computation process to us which enables them to focus on their core business activities.