Who is a Tax Consultant?
A tax consultant is a financial expert with advanced training and knowledge of tax law. A tax advisor or tax consultant is a financial expert specially trained in tax law. Individuals usually require tax advisors to minimize taxation, to avoid learning the details of tax law in complicated financial situations themselves, or to learn the details of tax law from a professional advisor.
What are the qualifications required to become a Tax Consultant?
In India, most of the professionals acting as tax consultants are law graduates or persons having professional qualifications.
There are no prescribed qualifications to become a tax consultant/ advisor. Individuals with interpretation skills and expertise knowledge in Tax Laws can act as a Tax Consultant. Tax Laws are changing all the time so they should be up to date with recent Circulars, Notifications, Rules issued by the Department of Tax, Ministry of Finance, Tax laws of respective states. Furthermore, they are also required study the recent case laws related to tax laws.
A tax consultant should be able to minimize the tax liability of his clients by tax planning (acting within the four corners of the act i.e., legally). When compared with other professionals, a tax consultant can establish a long-term professional relationship with his clients.
Experience is an essential element to become a successful tax consultant. Individuals having working experience with professional like CS, ICWA, CS or any other tax consultants or professionals can easily flourish in the industry.
If you have qualifications like L.L.B, B.com, CA, CS, ICWA it will be beneficial(not mandatory), possess expertise knowledge, interpretations skill and ability to structure the affairs of clients to minimize tax liability with some experience, then you are pretty much set to become a qualified tax consultant in India!
However, some things to keep in mind as you get on board to become not only a tax consultant but a professional in any field – Remember to never follow false practices or misdemeanour when it come to work.
The Major roles of Tax consultants comprise of the following:
- Computation of Income Tax
- Filing of Income Tax returns
- Financial Planning
- Computation of sales tax under state and central laws
- Filing of Sales Tax return
Consultation with regard to registration, applicability of various tax laws
In addition to these income tax department has launched Tax Return Preparer Scheme, to mould individuals interested in taxation and independence in work to become a Tax return preparer. Candidates between the age of twenty-one and thirty-five can became a Tax Return Preparer if they have a bachelor’s degree from a recognized university from any of the following subjects:
- Law (LLB)
- Economics (B.A. / B.Sc.)
- Statistics (B.A. / B.Sc.)
- Mathematics (B.A. / B.Sc.)
- Commerce (B.Com.)
- Management/ Business Administration (BBA / BBM)
Hope this helps you increase your understanding and requirements in the field of Tax consultation in India and we wish you all the best in your journey to become a tax consultant!
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