MUKESH BUTANI

Professional Background

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• Mukesh is the founder of BMR Legal an independent law firm specializing in Tax policy, Advocacy & Disputes that has been ranked amongst Tier 1 tax firms in India in independent surveys. Mukesh co-founded and was Chairman of BMR Advisors, amongst India’s leading professional services firm, with competencies in the area of Tax & M&A Advisory services, which transitioned into Big 4 firms in August/ September 2017.

• With specialisation in corporate international tax and transfer pricing for over three decades, Mukesh has significant experience in advising Fortune 500 multinationals and large Indian business houses on a wide range of matters relating to trade & investment policy, business re-organisations, cross-border tax structuring, corporate international tax and controversy across a range of sectors.

• Mukesh is a Commerce graduate from the University of Bombay and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1985 and practiced as a fellow member until 2010. Since then, he enrolled as an Advocate and is a member of Bar Council of Delhi.  He has represented clients in several Income-tax Tribunals, High Courts and the Supreme Court of India.

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Proven Track Record

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• Mukesh has several authorships to his credit – including works published by LexisNexis Butterworths, Tax Disputes Resolution – challenges and opportunities for India, with foreward by India’s Finance Minister Transfer Pricing – an Indian perspective and a treatise on Transfer Pricing (India chapter) Dispute Resolution for the Cambridge University Press.

• His other authorships include the Wolters Kluwer CCH online guide to Transfer Pricing in Asia and India chapters on Business Restructurings, Customs Valuation and intra-group services all co-authored for the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD).

• He has contributed to Thomson Reuters 2017 global guide on Tax litigation.

• He contributed to chapter Dispute Resolution mechanism in Asia in the recent (2017) publication of IBFD titled Asian Voices: BEPS and Beyond.

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Capabilities

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• Mukesh participated in the Kelkar task force (2002) tax reforms and was a member of the Indian Ministry of Finance (MoF) committee (2000) on e-commerce taxation.

• He is representing International Chamber of Commerce, Paris (ICC) on the MoF Standing Committee on TDS and Foreign Tax Credit. Mukesh served as member of expert task force on International Tax and Transfer Pricing set up by MoF in July 2012.

• He was a member of Tax bureau of OECD- BIAC (2000- 2012), Permanent Scientific Committee of IFA (2012-2016) and is presently Vice Chairman of Taxation Commission of ICC Paris from 2011.

• He served as member of Focus Group on administrative practices on tax disputes under the Tax Administration Reform Commission (TARC) set up in August 2013 by the MoF. Mukesh participated as part of expert panel of NITI Aayog (2014) and is presently a member of ‘Champions of Change’ initiative of NITI Aayog, a policy think tank of the Government of India chaired by the Indian PM. He is a founder member (2015) of International Tax Research & Analysis Foundation (ITRAF), an independent think tank for research and analysis in the area of international tax policy to ensure superior policy and effective tax administration in India, including integration of domestic policies with OECD/ G20 lead Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) initiative. He is part of visiting faculty of Dr Lang’s international Tax Law University of Vienna and Tax Academy of Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of IRAS, Singapore Government.

• For the past decade, he has been consistently featured amongst leading international tax and transfer pricing advisors in independent surveys, most notably Euromoney’s International Tax Review, Legal Review Expert Guides (2002 to 2015), Asia Law Leading Lawyers, Chambers & Partners and Who’s Who Legal of Corporate Tax Lawyers. Mukesh has been consistently ranked amongst India’s top Tax Controversy Lawyer since 2013 in expert guide of International Tax Review.