Direct Tax & Regulatory

India's tax and regulatory environment is dynamic, consequential, and increasingly demanding of proactive strategy. For businesses and individuals alike, tax is no longer a back-office function, instead it is a strategic lever that shapes deal economics, business model design, cash flow, and long-term value. At Aeka, we combine deep direct tax expertise, international tax capabilities, and cross-sector regulatory intelligence to help clients navigate complexity with clarity. Our belief is straightforward: tax strategy must integrate seamlessly with business strategy, and every position taken must be one that stands the test of scrutiny and not just satisfies it.

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Real Estate

Real estate sits at the intersection of Income-tax, GST, stamp duty, RERA, FEMA, property laws, and corporate law, each with its own compliance demands and planning opportunities. A single transaction can trigger obligations across multiple regulatory domains simultaneously, and structuring it correctly from the onset of a transaction will ensure unlocking its true potential value.

Our domain expertise ranges from advising developers, landowners, REITs ecosystem, real estate focused funds and vehicles, family-owned property holdings, and institutional investors across every phase of the value chain that is, acquisition, development, leasing, and divestment, and act as project co-ordinator for the overall deal structuring and its implementation.

Areas Of Expertise

Transaction structuring for acquisitions, joint developments/ development agreements, and divestments
Tax and stamp duty implications across deal and holding structures
Tax, including capital gains advisory for promoters, landowners, and institutional investors
Advice on various fund raise alternative/ mechanism available based on the nature of project and the category of investors, for ease of entry and exit
Assistance with deep diving into project level business model, including structuring the cash flows and investment-to-return model
Advising NRIs, overseas funds, non-resident investors on cross-border real estate investments and repatriation strategies in compliance with FEMA
GST advisory on development agreements, works contracts, and lease structures
Conventional IPO path, REIT and InvIT strategic preparedness and structuring, covering pre-IPO steps, regulatory setup, SEBI filings, and investor advisory, Legacy property rationalisation and restructuring of family-owned real estate holdings

Start-ups & Emerging Companies

Every structural decision made in the early stages of a company has disproportionate and enduring implications on the company’s ability to raise capital, manage tax efficiency, design equity incentives, and execute successful exits. . Founders move fast, but the regulatory and tax environment demands precision. Gaps in entity structuring or ESOP design/ implementation rarely surface early and they tend to emerge as material impediments during fundraises or strategic transactions, when scrutiny is highest, remediation is expensive, and timelines are unforgiving and hence it becomes imperative to have an optimal entity structure and ESOP design in place.

We work with founders across the full lifecycle of their company from the initial entity design and efficient structuring, through successive fundraising rounds, to secondary transactions and founder/ employee liquidity events. Our advisory is commercially grounded, scalable, and built to pass the scrutiny of institutional investors and their advisors.

Areas Of Expertise

Business model advisory and entity structuring
Equity linked incentives structuring including but not limited to additional founder equity
Share capital realignment
End to end assistance in advising and implementation for efficient structures for companies in relation to primary fund raises/ secondary transaction
Externalization advisory — setting up a foreign holding company to support global fundraising including advisory in relation to PoEM aspects
Deal readiness and data room preparation ahead of fundraises or strategic transactions
Advisory and implementation on primary and secondary transactions, founder liquidity events, and partial exits
Advisory to clients on the path to an Initial Public Offering (“IPO”)
Reflip of externalised structure to India

Market Leaders & Listed Companies

For established businesses, the tax and regulatory function is no longer a peripheral concern, it is a core driver of financial performance and reputational standing. As operations expand across geographies, structures become more intricate, and regulatory scrutiny more acute, the need for disciplined, proactive tax management becomes correspondingly more significant. We work with mature businesses across sectors as a trusted advisory partner, bringing technical depth, commercial pragmatism, and senior-led attention to the full spectrum of their tax and regulatory obligations and ensuring that compliance is robust, positions are defensible, and planning is always ahead of the curve.

Areas Of Expertise

Integrated and efficient planning across operating businesses, holding structures, and personal investment portfolios
Promoter holding rationalisation and group structure simplification
IPO readiness
Capital realignment
Domestic and cross-border restructuring — mergers, demergers, business transfers, and capital restructuring, designed to be tax and regulatory efficient
Transfer pricing — documentation, benchmarking, intercompany policy design, and advance pricing agreements (APAs)
International tax advisory — holding structure optimisation, treaty analysis, and withholding tax management for cross-border operations

Other Tax & Regulatory Services

Beyond sector-specific mandates, we provide a broad suite of direct and indirect tax and regulatory advisory services to businesses across industries. From corporate tax planning and transfer pricing to and advance rulings for indirect tax matters — we offer reliable, senior-led guidance across the full spectrum of India's tax and regulatory landscape. Our philosophy is one of proactive planning, that is, anticipating changes in the regulatory environment before they become problems, rather than reacting to them after the fact.

Areas Of Expertise

Effective tax rate management, advance tax optimisation, and MAT/AMT advisory
GAAR and PoEM risk assessment and documentation
Regulatory advisory from a Companies Act, SEBI, FEMA standpoint
Income-tax return and related form filings for UHNIs/ HNIs, founders, funds, private trusts, etc.