Mr. Ashok Garg, Advocate graduated from Agra College, Agra in 1979 with a degree in law and with optionals of Labour Laws and Law of Bankruptcy. He then went on to join Indian Revenue Service in the same year. Very early in his career in the Revenue Service, his legal acumen was recognized when he represented the Department before Income-tax Appellate Tribunal for about 2 years. Due to this, he was chosen to be one of the two Under Secretaries (Judicial) in Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) in Ministry of Finance by relaxing the seniority rules, where he was to supervise and coordinate the Department’s litigation before Appellate Tribunals, High Courts and the Supreme Court.
After a successful stint of 3 years in CBDT, he served the Department in Mumbai for 6 years in various capacities and had the distinction of handling investigation and tax assessments of the then top three industrial houses of India. During this period, he had exposure to a wide variety of businesses (ranging from salt to software, shipping to civil aviation and from Dalal Street to diamonds), accountancy practices (more often mal-practices) and corporate structures and strategies.
It was during this time that he co-authored a book on capital gains tax in India (A to Z of Capital Gains Tax in India), which went on to become one of the most popular and authentic books on the subject at that time.
After Mumbai, he served the Department for about nine years in the state of Rajasthan in various capacities, including Commissioner of Income-tax (Central) Rajasthan. Thereafter, he also served as Commissioner (Appeals) as also administrative Commissioner in Jabalpur, Chennai and New Delhi. Always enthusiastic to pick up new skills, he took one year’s study leave from the Department to pursue a 1 year diploma in Information Technology. His knowledge and expertise in Income-tax law was recognized when he was nominated by the Ministry of Finance as Member of the Expert Group, set up in 2005 for rationalization and simplification of Income-tax law.
Thus having acquired a deep knowledge of law and taxation extending over a period of 28 years, he sought voluntary retirement and set up his own law firm providing variety of legal services. His initial principal clients were a group of multi-national companies with diverse interests ranging from pesticides and specialty chemicals and mining, to software services and electronics engineering. During his association with them, as their principal tax and legal advisor, he led a team of chartered accountants and advocates to attend to litigation with various tax departments and other regulatory authorities and advised the group on all the issues of International taxation. issues relating to withholding tax, transfer pricing, optimization of transactions with reference to tax implications, etc.
His other clients include from the field of education – formal as also supplementary education, real estate developers, exporters, e-commerce business enterprises, software developers etc. In last 7 years, he has been actively associated with more than a dozen national and international company takeovers/mergers as also private equity funding transactions.