India's tax landscape has never been more complex or more consequential. The GST framework — now the primary indirect tax regime — generates disputes at every level of the supply chain. Direct tax — income tax, corporate tax, minimum alternate tax, and the special regimes for international transactions — intersects with every commercial decision a business makes. Transfer pricing has become one of the most heavily litigated areas in Indian tax, particularly for multinationals with Indian subsidiaries or for Indian companies operating internationally. And the interaction of Indian tax law with double taxation avoidance agreements, the OECD's BEPS framework, and Pillar Two minimum tax creates a complexity that most Indian tax practices — staffed only with lawyers — cannot fully address.
Goldschmidt Pallonji's Taxation practice is built differently. Our team includes both Chartered Accountants and tax lawyers — working together on every significant mandate, not as separate professionals who pass work between them but as a single integrated team. This means the commercial judgment and financial analysis that CAs bring, and the legal strategy and advocacy that lawyers bring, are applied to every problem simultaneously. When GP structures a cross-border transaction, the tax advice is not a legal opinion that a CA then reviews. It is a joint analysis produced by both, from the first meeting.
Our practice spans the full tax spectrum — corporate and personal income tax advisory, GST advisory and compliance, transfer pricing, international tax and treaty planning, tax structuring for M&A and investments, tax litigation across all tribunals and courts, and tax investigation response when the Income Tax Department, GST authorities, or the SFIO's tax investigation wing comes to your door. Across all of these, the CA-lawyer integration is the constant that distinguishes GP's tax advice from every other provider in the market.
Each sub-practice is led by specialists. All sub-practices are connected — because tax problems rarely arrive in isolation.
Corporate income tax, MAT, AMT, personal income tax, TDS, advance tax, and tax planning for businesses and individuals.
Explore →GST structuring, compliance, audits, refunds, notices, show cause notices, and litigation across all GST forums including GSTAT.
Explore →TP documentation, benchmarking, APA applications, TP audit responses, ITAT appeals, and BEPS compliance for multinationals with Indian operations.
Explore →DTAA planning, PE advisory, withholding tax on cross-border payments, treaty benefit eligibility, LOB provisions, GAAR, and Pillar Two minimum tax.
Explore →Representation before CIT(A), ITAT, GSTAT, High Courts, and the Supreme Court in direct and indirect tax disputes — for corporates, HNIs, and NRIs.
Explore →Response to IT search and seizure operations, survey proceedings, SFIO tax investigations, black money and benami proceedings, and tax evasion prosecution defence.
Explore →Tax structuring for mergers, acquisitions, PE investments, JVs, and restructurings. Capital gains analysis, slump sale vs itemised transfer, stamp duty optimisation, and cross-border M&A tax.
Explore →Income tax planning for HNIs, NRIs, returning Indians, and expats. Residential status determination, FEMA-tax overlap, foreign asset disclosure, and DTAA benefit claims.
Explore →An Income Tax Department search and seizure operation — conducted under Section 132 of the Income Tax Act — is the most intrusive and consequential tax proceeding an individual or business can face. The documents seized, the statements recorded, and the assets restrained during a search determine the course of the assessment and prosecution proceedings that follow. GP provides immediate response to IT searches — with both a CA and a lawyer present, ensuring that the financial and legal dimensions are managed simultaneously from the first hour.
NRIs face Indian tax obligations that are often more complex and more consequential than they realise — on income sourced from India, on capital gains from the sale of India assets, on inherited Indian property, and on return to India where residential status changes. GP's NRI tax practice combines the Income Tax Act, FEMA, and the relevant DTAA (Australia, UAE, Singapore, UK) into integrated advice that addresses the full picture — not just the Indian tax in isolation.
The Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act 1988 (as amended in 2016) has created a new category of tax enforcement that overlaps with the PMLA, the Income Tax Act, and property law simultaneously. GP is one of the few practices in India capable of advising on benami proceedings across all three dimensions — the Initiating Officer proceedings, the Adjudicating Authority challenge, and the intersection with PMLA attachment where the same assets are subject to both benami and money laundering action.
Most businesses get tax advice from either a CA firm or a law firm — and then have to reconcile the two. GP eliminates this problem. Our Chartered Accountants and tax lawyers work on every mandate together — the financial modelling and the legal structuring happen in the same meeting, not in separate firms. The result is tax advice that is both commercially optimal and legally defensible, without the coordination delays and gaps that arise when two separate advisers work the same problem.
The best tax structuring is done by people who have litigated tax cases — because they know exactly which positions are defensible before the ITAT and which are not. GP's tax structuring team and tax litigation team are the same people. This means the structures we create are stress-tested against actual litigation patterns — not theoretical tax positions. And when a structure is challenged, the same team that built it defends it before the tribunal and courts.
India's DTAAs with Australia, Singapore, UAE, Hong Kong, and the UK are the five most commercially significant for GP's client base. Our founding directors have practised in these jurisdictions — meaning our advice on treaty benefit eligibility, PE exposure, withholding tax optimisation, and Pillar Two minimum tax implications is calibrated to the actual commercial reality of each corridor, not to a textbook reading of the treaty provisions.
Complete confidentiality maintained. These matters illustrate the nature of our integrated CA-lawyer tax practice.
Challenged a ₹85Cr TP adjustment raised against an Indian subsidiary of a Singapore multinational. GP's CAs prepared the benchmarking analysis and comparable company selection; our lawyers drafted the ITAT submissions and argued the arm's length price determination. ITAT upheld the assessee's position, deleting ₹62Cr of the adjustment.
Recovered ₹12Cr in blocked GST input tax credit refunds for a mid-sized manufacturer through the Appellate Authority, while simultaneously defending a ₹28Cr show cause notice on alleged ITC reversal. GP's CAs managed the technical ITC reconciliation; our lawyers presented the legal challenge to the SCN. Both matters resolved in client's favour.
Managed the full response cycle for a high-net-worth promoter family following an Income Tax Department search — from statements during the search through block assessment proceedings, CIT(A) appeal, and ITAT. GP's CAs reconstructed the financial records and reconciled the seized documents; our lawyers prepared the legal submissions. Block assessment additions reduced by 70% through the appellate process.
The Taxation practice is led by the Managing Director alongside a dedicated team of tax specialists — qualified CAs with deep transaction and litigation experience, and tax lawyers with tribunal and High Court advocacy capability. This team structure is GP's structural advantage: advisory without advocacy is incomplete, and advocacy without financial analysis is ineffective. GP provides both, in every matter.
The establishment of the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal — what changes, what stays the same, and how businesses with pending GST disputes should position their cases now.
Read Bulletin →How the OECD's 15% global minimum tax affects Indian outbound investment structures, holding company jurisdictions, and the relevance of existing DTAA networks for Australian, Singapore, and GCC investors in India.
Read Bulletin →