Today, GST is becoming an accepted norm of accurate compliances and simplified taxation. There is no denial that GST had met with a lot of obstacles and hurdles, but the recent strings of amendments and notifying the annual returns, the Government has clearly set its sight on making GST, a business-friendly tax. Moreover, Compliances are becoming simpler with each passing month, refunds are being processed at a rate faster than ever, benefits being now visible to the nation and this has all helped to ensure a better acceptance for GST among the general public as well.
S.B. Gabhawalla & Co. is one such professional service Chartered Accountancy firm practicing in the entire field of taxation with a specialization in Indirect Taxes. The firm has a distinct research orientation towards Service Tax & VAT related matters.
The firm is assisted by a sturdy team of 40+ young and energetic qualified human resources and is headquartered at a prime business area in Andheri, Mumbai. It has adequate infrastructure in terms of library resources, office ambience, research software, internet connectivity, web and e-mail support, collaborative task management and monitoring tools, etc.
The Helm of the Firm
S.B. Gabhawalla & Co is led by Shri. Sunil Gabhawalla. He is a chartered accountant in practice since December 1997. He has cleared his professional qualifications with splendid and note-worthy performances all throughout, with momentous achievements viz., 3rd rank (AIR-3) at the All-India CA Final examination, 9th position (AIR-9) at All India Level in CA Intermediate examinations and many more. He is also a cost accountant.
Sunil has been associated with the Bombay Chartered Accountants’ Society (BCAS) as its Core Group Member for many years and has been elected as the President of the said Society for the year 2018-19. Sunil is also a member of the Study Group constituted by the Maharashtra State Government for implementing GST. He is regularly invited by the policy-makers to present his thoughts on the policy formation parameters of the GST Law.
Sunil has delivered 500+ lectures at various forums and seminars across the country on various topics that range from Service Tax to Goods and Service Tax. He has also authored 21 editions of Treatise on Service Tax, published by Bharat Law House Pvt. Ltd.
Diverse Services
S.B. Gabhawalla & Co. is geared to render diverse nature of services which include consultancy, retainership, compliance, litigation, training, audit, etc. It also undertakes detailed audit/investigation services to identify transaction inefficiencies and suggest due diligence. Special assignments catering to specific requirements are also handled effectively.
A Noteworthy Journey
The zeal to make continuous improvements and to bring in specialization in the domain made the journey of S.B. Gabhawalla’s more distinguishing. This journey offered countless opportunities to the firm which made it stand distinct among its peers. Since its inception in 1997, the key focus of the firm was Direct Taxes. However, a few clients being service industry oriented, approached Sunil to not just handle their Direct tax and related fields, but also take up their Indirect tax and related aspects. “Work just flowed in and the firm kept on building expertise progressively”, says the firm members.
Today, the firm has grown from a strength of 20 in 2015 to 40+ by the mid of 2018. The increase in strength not just represents the growth of the firm, but also depicts the client satisfaction and trust held in its professional customized services.
Distinctive Features of S.B. Gabhawalla & Co.
The firm considers that- ‘ In today’s age of technology, your work is better appreciated if you render your services in a way that the client can enjoy the same at any given point of time’. Keeping this belief in mind, the firm has created client wise WhatsApp groups and industry-specific WhatsApp groups to disseminate regular updates and resolve queries with a very quick turnaround time. Further, immediately after the draft, GST law was in public domain, the firm was one of the players to start detailed GST Awareness Sessions and such sessions are recorded in a series of 75+ videos and are available on the YouTube channel of the firm.
On the top of it, the firm had designed an android based app available on Google Playstore that helped each client to track their GST implementation on their cellphones. Even today, the firm conducts lecture meeting every year immediately after the Union budget to disseminate the updates and changes to its clients. Further, to apprise the clients of the regular updates in GST, 2-3 lecture meetings and interactive sessions are organized annually which is attended by 300+ participants at a time.
Paving its Way through Challenges
The typical challenges in any professional services firm revolve around building in-house capabilities, addressing client expectations, and delivering quality services with quick turnaround time on a consistent basis. In the case of indirect tax domain, an additional dimension is the rapidly changing regulatory landscape – keeping updated with the same and also ensuring dissemination to the team and the clients.
S.B. Gabhawalla believes that- One of the key solutions to overcome any challenges is to build a good team and better leaders. Each of the team is led by a Senior Manager with a minimum experience of four years in practice and who are all ultimately guided by Sunil.
Philosophy to Reach the Epitome of Success
The basic ideology of the firm revolves around the three main principles of integrity, knowledge and speed. Having followed these principles at its fullest, the firm has created a niche for itself in the field of consultancy and evolved new paradigms in rendering quality service to clients. Over the last two decades, the firm had served a wide arena of clientele ranging across the spectrum of various industries.
While advising the budding entrepreneurs, Sunil says, “It is important to be updated with the latest information and knowledge. It is also important to think through the various facets of a problem presented by the client and provide a workable business solution.”
The Firm’s View on GST’s Contribution
Presently, with almost 3/4th of 2018, the current trends suggest that the Indian economy is heavily impacted by Crude oil prices, FDI inflows, rising entrepreneurship, active Government, RBI and active crackdown on NPAs, growing GDP and last but not the least, the new unified Indirect Taxation regime of GST, replacing a plethora of scattered and diversified indirect taxes across the country.
“Talking purely in terms of numbers, with GST collections hovering around about Rs. 1 lakh crore on a monthly basis and total GST collections crossing Rs. 1 Trillion up to April 2018 itself, these facts talk volumes about GST itself, along with its acceptance among the Indian businesses. India is gradually moving from tax evasion to tax compliance regime, with things now being linked and integrated, Direct Tax and Indirect Tax shall walk hand-in-hand. Better compliance will benefit India not only in terms of growth but also towards being a Developed nation. Indian businesses are now streamlining their practices with monthly tax payments, ensuring timeliness and effective utilization of the resources at their disposals”, conveys S.B. Gabhawalla & Co.
Staying Rationalized for Future Development
GST has no doubt been a game changer, not just for the economy, but also for the businesses. It was one of the most looked-forward opportunity to re-assess and re-align the processes, documentation, strategies and much more.
Being active in the pre-GST period to assist and implement the GST, S.B. Gabhawalla is still very dynamic on the outlook to help its clients to acclimatize the changes in the GST-era on a regular basis. Regularly conducting free seminars and lecture meetings for updates in GST to sharing weekly updates, the firm leaves no stone unturned to keep ensuring the clients keep gaining knowledge and updates in this post-GST era.
Source :-The 10 Most Prominent GST Consultants in 2018
