TFD Policy Research Desk

32 POSTS
TFD Policy Research Desk delivers sharp, insightful analysis of India’s evolving fiscal and regulatory landscape. It decodes tax reforms, developments, government policies, and global fiscal trends, offering professionals clear, timely perspectives that bridge complex legislation with real-world business and compliance implications.

Exclusive articles:

SaaS Tax and India’s Cross-Border Misfit: Royalty, FTS, Business Profits—or a Broken Taxonomy?

Cross-border SaaS tax in India still relies on old labels—royalty, FTS, and business profits. That mismatch is now raising withholding risk, pricing uncertainty, and treaty disputes.

Beneficial ownership: how much commercial substance does treaty relief really need in 2026?

Beneficial ownership is no longer a box-ticking treaty concept. In 2026, Indian treaty relief turns on whether the recipient truly controls, retains, and bears the income.

Equalisation levy: is it living on borrowed time in a Pillar One–Pillar Two world?

Equalisation levy may be off the statute book prospectively, but its repeal says as much about OECD pressure and compliance friction as it does about digital tax reform.

Faceless penalty after assessment: why natural justice is becoming the decisive defence

Faceless penalty disputes in India are increasingly turning on procedural fairness. As digital assessments mature, natural justice is emerging as the most serious defence in penalty litigation.

GAAR in India after a decade: credible deterrent or underused headline provision?

A decade after GAAR entered the statute book, India’s anti-avoidance rule looks less like a daily weapon and more like a quiet constraint on how aggressive planning gets priced.

Breaking

Auditor Independence Gets a Cooling-Off Clause: MCA’s Cross-Selling Squeeze on the Big Four

MCA’s proposed auditor independence reform would extend non-audit service restrictions for three years after audit tenure ends, targeting the cross-selling economics that have long strengthened large multidisciplinary networks.

Audit Quality Maturity Model and the Big Four Question Returns

ICAI has widened the mandatory reach of the Audit Quality Maturity Model to group audits and other public-interest engagements. The move sharpens India's audit-quality architecture, but it also reopens the harder question of whether domestic firms can build credible scale against the Big Four.

NFRA inspection reports put Big Four-linked audit networks on notice

NFRA’s March 2026 inspection reports have turned audit quality into the central governance story around India’s Big Four-linked audit networks, with independence, group controls and evidence quality all under pressure.

IBC Amendment Act 2026 Moves Insolvency Out of the Waiting Room

The IBC Amendment Act 2026 is India’s clearest attempt yet to cut insolvency delays where they actually begin—at admission, in liquidation and in the messy afterlife of resolution-plan implementation.