A boutique built for the hardest indirect-tax questions.
Most firms treat indirect tax as one line on a long menu. We treat it as the whole discipline. From GST classification and input-credit strategy to Customs valuation, Foreign Trade Policy incentives and cross-border VAT, we go deep where the exposure — and the opportunity — actually sits.
When a position is challenged, we defend it: drafting replies to show-cause notices, prosecuting appeals, and representing clients through CESTAT and the High Court. And where compliance is repetitive, we automate it — so your team spends its time on judgement, not data entry.
Three disciplines, one focus
Advisory
GST, Customs and FTP advisory, tax structuring, due diligence and health checks — clarity before the transaction, not after.
Learn moreLitigation
From the first show-cause notice to the High Court — disciplined drafting, appeals and representation across GST and legacy indirect taxes.
Learn moreCompliance
Automated GSTR filings, GSTR-2B reconciliation and compliance reviews — powered by RPA and analytics, kept audit-ready.
Learn moreCompliance, automated end to end.
We build the same tooling in-house that global firms buy — bots and workflows that file GSTR returns, reconcile GSTR-2B against your purchase register, and surface exceptions before the department does.
Tapas Ruparelia
A decade and more of indirect-tax leadership at PwC and K.C. Mehta & Co. — leading GST and Customs advisory, running litigation from drafting to representation, and building the automation that now sits at the core of our practice. Tax Strategia pairs that technical depth with a builder's instinct for making compliance effortless.
Meet the teamPractical notes on indirect tax
Deep expertise, delivered without the overhead.
For years, our founder led indirect-tax practices inside a Big Four firm and one of India's most respected national firms — advising multinationals, running litigation from show-cause notice to appellate hearing, and building the automation that made high-volume compliance dependable.
Tax Strategia Partners brings that experience into a focused, partner-led practice. Clients get senior judgement on every engagement, a specialist's command of GST, Customs and Foreign Trade Policy, and tooling that keeps compliance fast, accurate and audit-ready.
No layers. No handoffs to juniors. Just the person who knows your matter, working on your matter.
Precise
Every position is reasoned, documented and defensible. We do not round the truth.
Measured
Confidence without theatrics. We assess risk honestly and advise plainly.
Practical
Advice you can act on — with the automation to make it stick, month after month.
Discreet
Client confidence is absolute. What we handle stays between us.
A foundation built at the top of the profession.
Advisory across the full breadth of indirect tax and Foreign Trade Policy; drafting replies to show-cause notices, appeals and representations; successful representation to CESTAT; part of the national litigation and knowledge-management team, briefing Senior Counsels.
On the ground for the introduction of VAT in the Middle East — a key member in setting up the PwC Service Delivery Centre for regional VAT compliance, then overseeing it and running regular quality reviews.
Led the GST & Customs advisory practice and its technology adoption — automating monthly GSTR compliance with workflows and bots, and building an in-house GSTR-2B versus purchase-register reconciliation. Responsible for all litigation across Customs, Excise, Service Tax and GST, from drafting to representation, alongside due diligence, health checks and the firm's indirect-tax publications.
Our home market — GST, Customs and FTP advisory, litigation and compliance nationwide.
Hands-on VAT implementation and compliance experience from the region's transition.
Supporting US-facing businesses on their indirect-tax exposure into and out of India.
Let's talk about your matter.
Partner-led, confidential, and to the point.
Advisory
Forward-looking guidance that turns tax complexity into commercial advantage — before the transaction closes, not after the notice arrives.
Litigation
Rigorous representation through the full dispute lifecycle — replies, appeals and hearings across GST and the legacy indirect-tax regimes, up to the High Court.
Compliance
Meticulous, technology-led compliance — returns filed on time, credits reconciled, and exceptions caught before they become assessments.
Technology isn't a service line. It runs through all three.
RPA, workflows and analytics accelerate advisory reviews, strengthen litigation evidence, and make compliance dependable — the same in-house tooling, applied wherever it adds value.
The right answer, before the cost is locked in.
Indirect tax is decided at the design stage. The classification you adopt, the way a contract is structured, the incentive you claim — each carries a cash and a compliance consequence that compounds over years. Our advisory practice gets those decisions right early.
We advise across GST, Customs and Foreign Trade Policy, working alongside your direct-tax and transfer-pricing advisors to arrive at a structure that is efficient, defensible and simple to run. Every opinion is grounded in law and written to withstand scrutiny.
Capabilities
GST advisory
Classification and rates, input-tax-credit strategy, place and time of supply, valuation, and sector-specific positions.
Customs
HSN classification, valuation and SVB, duty optimisation, exemptions and end-use compliance on imports and exports.
Foreign Trade Policy
Advance Authorisation, EPCG, RoDTEP/RoSCTL, SEZ and EOU schemes — claiming and protecting the incentives you're entitled to.
Due diligence & health checks
Pre-transaction diligence and periodic health checks that surface exposure, quantify risk and flag recoverable credit.
Tax structuring
Optimal indirect-tax structures for transactions and supply chains, aligned with your direct-tax and transfer-pricing position.
Impact analysis & implementation
Assessing the effect of rate changes and new law, then implementing the systems, contracts and processes to comply.
A clear path to a defensible answer
Understand
We map the facts, the commercial intent and the documentation behind them.
Analyse
We test positions against statute, rules, circulars and case law — and weigh the risk honestly.
Advise
You get a written opinion — the recommendation, the reasoning, and the alternatives.
Implement
We help translate the advice into systems, contracts and compliance that hold up.
Advisory FAQ
Do you advise on GST, Customs and FTP together?
Yes. Most real questions touch more than one — an import decision has GST, Customs and often FTP consequences at once. We handle all three so nothing falls between the gaps.
Can you support a specific transaction or restructuring?
Absolutely. We advise on the indirect-tax treatment of transactions and supply-chain changes, coordinating with your direct-tax and transfer-pricing teams to land an efficient, coherent structure.
What does a tax health check involve?
A focused review of your positions, filings and documentation to identify exposure, quantify potential liability and recover credit you may be leaving on the table — ideally before an assessment forces the question.
Disputes are won on the record you build early.
A tax dispute is decided long before the hearing — in how the reply to the show-cause notice is framed, which facts are put on record, and which arguments are preserved for appeal. We treat the first response as the foundation of the whole case.
Our founder has drafted and argued matters across GST, Customs, Excise and Service Tax, represented clients to CESTAT, and briefed Senior Counsel on complex litigation. That experience now sits behind every notice we answer and every appeal we prosecute — up to the High Court.
Capabilities
Show-cause notices
Strategic replies and representations that set the record straight and preserve every argument for later.
First appeals
Grounds of appeal and submissions before the Commissioner (Appeals), built on a clean evidentiary record.
Tribunal — CESTAT
Drafting and representation before the Tribunal across GST and legacy indirect-tax matters.
High Court
Writs and appeals to the High Court, with Senior Counsel briefed and instructed where the matter demands it.
Legacy disputes
Ongoing Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax litigation carried through to resolution.
Investigations & summons
Measured support through anti-evasion enquiries, audits and departmental summons.
Built to win at the next stage, not just this one
Assess the notice
We read the allegation precisely and size the real exposure and the timeline.
Build the record
Facts, documents and reconciliations are marshalled into a coherent evidentiary base.
Draft & respond
Replies and appeals drafted to answer the case and preserve every ground.
Represent
We appear before the authorities and Tribunal, and brief Counsel for the High Court.
Litigation FAQ
How far can you take a GST dispute?
Through the full appellate chain — departmental adjudication, the Commissioner (Appeals), the Tribunal, and up to the High Court, where we brief and instruct Senior Counsel.
Do you still handle Excise and Service Tax matters?
Yes. Legacy Customs, Central Excise and Service Tax disputes remain live in the system, and we carry them through to resolution alongside GST litigation.
Can you take over a matter that's already underway?
Often, yes. We review the record and the stage reached, identify what can still be preserved or argued, and take it forward from there.
Compliance that runs itself — with an expert watching.
Routine compliance shouldn't consume your team, and it shouldn't be where credit quietly leaks away. We build the automation — workflows, bots and analytics — that files returns, reconciles GSTR-2B against your purchase register, and flags mismatches for action, every cycle.
It's the same in-house tooling our founder built to run high-volume compliance inside a leading national firm, now put to work for you. The machine does the repetition; a specialist owns the judgement.
Capabilities
Automated GSTR filings
GSTR-1, 3B and annual returns filed through workflows and bots — on time, with a clear audit trail.
GSTR-2B reconciliation
Automated matching of GSTR-2B against your purchase register, with mismatches surfaced for action.
Input-tax-credit management
Protecting eligible credit, isolating blocked credit, and keeping vendor compliance in view.
RPA for repetitive tasks
Bespoke bots that automate the high-volume, rule-based work that clogs tax teams.
Data-analytics reviews
Analytics across your data to catch anomalies, duplicates and exceptions before they escalate.
Compliance reviews
Periodic reviews and health checks that confirm you're filing right — not just filing on time.
From spreadsheets to a system
Diagnose
We map your current process, data sources and pain points end to end.
Design & automate
We configure workflows, bots and reconciliations around how you actually operate.
Run & reconcile
Returns are filed and credit reconciled each cycle, with exceptions escalated.
Report & improve
Dashboards keep you informed, and each cycle sharpens the next.
Compliance FAQ
Do we have to change our ERP or accounting system?
No. Our automation layers on top of the data you already produce — it reads your exports and works around your existing systems rather than replacing them.
Why does GSTR-2B reconciliation matter so much?
Your input tax credit is only as safe as its match to GSTR-2B. Automated reconciliation each month protects eligible credit, catches vendor defaults early, and keeps you audit-ready.
Can you run compliance as a managed service?
Yes. We can own the end-to-end compliance function — automated, reconciled and reviewed — or support your in-house team with tooling and oversight. Whichever fits.
Tapas Ruparelia
Tapas is an indirect-tax specialist with more than a decade of experience across a Big Four firm and one of India's leading national practices. He advises on GST, Customs and Foreign Trade Policy, leads litigation from show-cause notice to the High Court, and has built the automation that now underpins the firm's compliance work.
At PwC he worked across the breadth of indirect tax and FTP — drafting replies to notices, appeals and representations, appearing to CESTAT, and briefing Senior Counsel as part of the national litigation and knowledge-management team. During the UAE's move to VAT he helped set up and run PwC's regional Service Delivery Centre. At K.C. Mehta & Co. he led the GST & Customs advisory practice and its technology adoption — automating monthly GSTR compliance and building an in-house GSTR-2B reconciliation — while owning all indirect-tax litigation and the firm's technical publications.
We're building a team that shares one standard.
If you're an indirect-tax professional who cares about doing the work properly — and about the technology that makes it better — we'd like to hear from you.
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