The question asked, answered
Replies address the notice rather than volunteering explanations for matters not raised, which is how a single-issue enquiry becomes a general examination.
Tax & Regulatory
Tax Notice & Assessment Representation
A single notice, answered properly. Reconstruction of the record, a drafted and filed response, management of the demand and the recovery position, and a written view on what the notice is actually asking.
Overview
A notice is not a verdict. It is a question, usually a narrow one, and most of the damage is done by answering a wider question than was asked or by answering late.
The common failures are consistent. An enquiry notice is treated as urgent and a scrutiny notice as routine when the reverse is true. A reply is filed without an index, so the evidence is present but not found. Two authorities are given two explanations for the same turnover difference. A demand is contested on appeal while recovery proceeds unchecked, and a refund for a later year is quietly adjusted against it.
This engagement takes one notice, or a set of related notices, and produces a filed response built on a reconstructed record. It covers income tax and GST, because the same numbers frequently generate both. It also covers what happens after the response: the demand, the recovery position, and the decision on whether to appeal.
Scope of engagement
- Notice triage on receipt: identifying what the notice actually is, the provision under which it was issued, the response window, and whether that window can be extended.
- Income tax enquiry and scrutiny notices, including questionnaires issued during faceless assessment and requests for information from third parties.
- Summary-processing intimations where the demand arises from a mismatch with the annual tax statement or an adjustment flagged in the audit report, and rectification where that is the correct route.
- Reassessment notices: examining the information relied on, the show-cause stage and the reply, the limitation period against the escaped income alleged, and the level of sanction, before any submission on merits is drafted.
- GST scrutiny of returns, discrepancy notices in ASMT-10, pre-notice intimations in DRC-01A and show cause notices in DRC-01 under Sections 73, 74 and 74A.
- Registration proceedings: show cause notices proposing cancellation, applications for revocation, and responses to physical verification findings.
- Voluntary payment in DRC-03 where the position does not support a contest, and its adjustment against a subsequent demand.
- Demand and recovery management: reconstruction of the demand register, challenge to refund adjustments made without prior intimation, and applications for stay or for the demand to be held in abeyance.
- Penalty proceedings, including the distinction between under-reporting and misreporting and the reduced-penalty windows that close on a fixed number of days.
- First appeals where the response does not resolve the matter, including grounds, statement of facts and the computation of the statutory pre-deposit.
- A closing note identifying the process failure that produced the notice, so the same year is not re-litigated in the next cycle.
Deliverables
- A written notice assessment within two business days of receiving the papers: what is being asked, what the exposure is, what the deadline is, and what we recommend.
- A reconstructed record for the period in question, reconciling books, returns, bank statements and the annual tax statement.
- A drafted response in filing-ready form, self-contained, with each question restated and answered and each annexure indexed and named.
- The filed submission with its acknowledgement.
- A demand and recovery position note listing every open demand for the entity, its status, and any adjustment already made against it.
- A stay or abeyance application with the supporting financials where a demand has been raised.
- Where the matter proceeds, grounds of appeal, statement of facts and the pre-deposit computation.
- A short closing memorandum on what caused the notice and what to change.
Process
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Triage
The notice is read against the statute on the day it reaches us. Type, provision, window, and whether the window is movable. Nothing else begins until this is settled and confirmed to you in writing.
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Record reconstruction
We rebuild the period from primary records rather than from the ledger summary. Where records are missing we identify what can be sourced from the portals, the bank and third parties, and what cannot.
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Position and strategy
You receive a written view before drafting starts: the strength of each point, the exposure, whether voluntary payment reduces penalty, and what we recommend answering and what we recommend conceding.
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Drafting and filing
The response is drafted, sent to you for approval, and filed with the evidence indexed. Every factual statement in the reply is traceable to a numbered annexure.
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Demand and recovery
Run in parallel, not afterwards. Stay applications, part payment, and the refund adjustment history are dealt with while the response is pending.
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Outcome and closure
The order is read against the submission to see what was accepted and what was not. We then advise on appeal, and record the process change that prevents a repeat.
Benefits
One set of numbers
Where the same facts have produced both a GST and an income tax notice, the reconciliation is done once so the two answers cannot contradict each other.
The demand handled in parallel
Stay, part payment and refund adjustments are addressed while the response is live, rather than discovered when a later refund does not arrive.
Submissions built to be read cold
Faceless proceedings are decided by someone with no context. Each reply is self-contained and indexed so the evidence can be located without a conversation.
Industries served
Retail and e-commerce, where notices commonly arise from marketplace reporting differences, credit notes and returns at volume, and stock movement between State registrations. Manufacturing, where they arise from job-work movements, e-way bill mismatches, and disallowance for late deposit of statutory dues. Startups and growth companies, where the trigger is usually a first scrutiny after a funding round, share premium valuation, or founder and consultant payments. We also act for technology and software, healthcare, financial services, and real estate and infrastructure.
Typical timeline
- Acknowledgement of the notice and confirmation of the deadline: within one business day of receipt.
- Written notice assessment with our recommendation: within two business days of receiving the papers.
- Record reconstruction: 5 to 15 business days, depending on how much has to be rebuilt from outside your own system.
- Drafted response for your approval: 3 business days before the filing date, so there is time to comment.
- Filed response: 10 to 25 business days from instruction, compressed where the notice date demands it.
- First appeal papers, where the matter proceeds: within 15 business days of the order, subject to the appeal period available.
Engagement model
Contracted per notice, at a fixed fee set after the triage assessment, so you know the cost before the work starts and before any position is taken. Where several notices relate to the same period or the same issue, they are scoped and priced as one matter. Ongoing dispute work beyond the first response is quoted separately at that point rather than assumed.
Delivery is virtual. Papers are exchanged through a controlled folder, drafts are issued for your approval, and submissions are filed through your own portal credentials so nothing leaves your control. Some proceedings require personal attendance, or a document signed in a professional capacity. Work requiring a registered signatory is performed and signed by a professional holding the relevant registration.
What is not included
- Advocacy before the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, the Goods and Services Tax Appellate Tribunal, the High Court or the Supreme Court.
- Any assurance about outcome. We assess the position honestly and we do not predict what an authority will decide.
- Payment of tax, interest, penalty, pre-deposit or appeal fees. We compute these and state the dates; the funds move from your account.
- Search, survey and seizure proceedings while they are in progress, and prosecution or arrest proceedings under either statute.
- Matters under the Black Money Act, the Benami Transactions legislation, customs and foreign trade policy, and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
- Reconstruction of records that do not exist and cannot be sourced. We will document the gap and make the case on what survives, but we will not create a document.
- Any communication with an official outside the formal record. Everything we do on a matter is filed or written.
- Book-keeping, return preparation and the ongoing compliance that would have prevented the notice. Those are separate engagements.
- Representation for periods where the statutory remedy has already expired.
Frequently asked questions
Usually. Tell us the notice type and the date on it before anything else, because that determines what is still possible. Extensions can be sought for most enquiry and scrutiny notices and are commonly granted once. Statutory appeal periods and objection windows cannot be extended by request. We will say on the first call whether the deadline is movable and what a realistic response looks like in the time available.
Yes, and often the same underlying facts produce both. A turnover difference between the annual GST return and the audited accounts can produce a GST scrutiny notice and an income tax enquiry on the same figures, sometimes in the same quarter. Answering them separately with inconsistent explanations is how a manageable question becomes two disputes. We reconcile once and answer from one set of numbers.
Say so, in writing, with an explanation of why and what does exist. Silence is treated as inability to substantiate, and an adverse inference follows. In practice a great deal can be rebuilt from bank statements, the GST portal, the annual tax statement, vendor confirmations and audited accounts. We reconstruct what can be reconstructed, state plainly what cannot, and make the case on the evidence that survives.
A stay is applied for, not obtained on request. The application has to show the strength of the position and the hardship the recovery would cause, evidenced by financial statements rather than asserted. Part payment is often required. For GST appeals the pre-deposit is fixed by statute at ten per cent of the disputed tax for the first appeal, with a further ten per cent for an appeal to the Tribunal. We prepare the application; the authority decides it.
It is read, but by someone with no context beyond what is uploaded. That changes how you write. Each reply is drafted as a self-contained document: the question restated, the answer, the evidence, and an index. Annexures are named so they can be identified without opening them. Nothing is left to a conversation, because there is no conversation, and nothing is assumed to be remembered from an earlier submission.
Not necessarily, but the options narrow. Where an assessment has been completed on a best judgement basis, the route is an appeal or, in some circumstances, an application to set the order aside. Where a GST order has issued, the appeal period runs from the date of communication and a limited further period may be condoned for sufficient cause. We will tell you honestly which doors are still open rather than file something that cannot succeed.
Yes, in writing and early. An engagement that begins with an unrealistic assessment of the case ends badly for everyone. Where the position is weak we set out what the exposure is, whether voluntary payment reduces penalty, and whether the amnesty or reduced-penalty windows apply. Sometimes the right advice is to pay, document, and fix the process that produced the problem.
Related services
GST Advisory & Compliance
Where the notice has exposed a monthly process that needs running properly from the next period onward.
Direct Tax Advisory & Litigation Support
Where the response does not resolve the matter and the appeal drafting, evidence and briefing work begins.
Forensic Advisory & Investigation
Where the notice turns on transactions whose nature and source have to be traced before they can be explained.