Quick. Who's India's top tax advisor?

Who is the country's top tax advisor?

A survey carried out by International Tax Review, a Euromoney Group publication specialising in tax and legal issues, has placed Mukesh Butani of Ernst & Young at the top of the heap of leading tax advisors in India, followed by Sohrab Dastur & Co. and Rathin Datta of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The three are followed by Gautam Doshi of RSM & Co, Shefali Goradia of Nishith Desai Associates, NV Iyer of Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, and Kapil Marwaha of KPMG, in that order.

Among tax advisory firms, ITR has placed Ernst & Young at the top in tier 1. Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, KPMG and PwC have been placed in tier 2, while Bansi S Mehta, Dastur & Co, Nishith Desai Associates and RSM & Co have been put in tier 3.

ITR has been publishing surveys of the leading tax advisors in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia each year. This is the first time it has done the survey in India.

The research was carried out with tax lawyers and advisors as well as corporate tax managers. Over 3,000 questionnaires were sent out, to which over 600 responses were received. Most of these responses were from tax directors.

ITR also carried out over 150 interviews to arrive at the rankings. No firm was allowed to vote for itself or rank any of its partners or employees.

Butani, the national tax director of Ernst & Young, was working with Arthur Andersen and came on to the Ernst & Young rolls when the firm was taken over last year.

This had added substantially to the tax practice of Ernst & Young. Butani has recently authored a book on transfer pricing and was also a member of the government constituted committee on e-commerce taxation.

The size of the tax advisory market in India has increased significantly over the last ten years largely due to an influx of foreign direct investment, foreign institutional investors, M&A activity and overall economic growth.