Tax planning and advisory is the examination of proposed or recurring transactions against the Income-tax Act as it stands for the relevant year, so that the tax result is known before the books are closed. It is not a substitute for filing; it is the computation and option analysis that should precede filing and major decisions.
Typical questions include comparison of the old and new tax regimes, timing of capital-gain realisation, treatment of gifts and settlements, remuneration and interest in partnership firms, depreciation and additional depreciation, and the tax effect of changing from presumptive taxation to books of account. Each note sets out the facts, the sections that apply, the computation under available options, and the documents that must be kept if a particular position is taken.
Advisory work also covers ongoing changes in circulars, notifications, and judicial positions that affect an existing structure. Where a position is uncertain, the note records the risk and the disclosure that would be expected in the return. The aim is a written basis for the figure that later appears in the ITR, not an informal oral view that cannot be reconstructed at assessment.
Planning is revisited when the client adds a line of business, buys or sells an asset, or changes residential status, because those events reset the heads of income and the available deductions.