Vivek Baj is a Partner at ELP and has been part of the firm’s Tax practice for close to fourteen years.

Vivek has handled various indirect tax and customs matters for several conglomerates on the advisory, advocacy and litigation fronts. He has deep experience across sectors including real estate, software, insurance, financial services, telecom and automobile.

On the policy front, Vivek was involved with advising and formulating representations on behalf of auto and auto ancillaries to the Government on the RoDTEP scheme. Since the RoDTEP scheme had no precedent and all information had to be analyzed from ground up, this assignment was one of a kind in the Indian tax landscape. He has also provided assistance to several  firms with respect to simultaneous De-notification and De-bonding of an SEZ unit (without removal of the goods and operations being continued at the same premises thereafter as a DTA unit).

On the advisory front Vivek is currently advising various conglomerates on indirect tax related issues including structuring. He has assisted various MNC’s in advisory on bonded warehouses which includes suggestions for IT system changes, compliance documentation, resolving the day-to-day issues faced while operating under MOOWR, filing representations on behalf of industries, and obtaining licenses in a short span of time. Currently, he is also advising a client on tax optimization strategies to set up a steam generation plant in an SEZ. Vivek also assists on trade compliance especially under Indian export control regulations, benefits available under various schemes of Foreign Trade Policy, FTA/PTA benefits and Premise Based Audits recently initiated by the Customs Authorities. He also provides advisory on on anti-dumping duty levies, rationalizing customs duty on raw materials, advisory on classification, incentives available under various Central/ State Government schemes ( i.e. Product Linked Incentives, Package Scheme of Incentives etc).

Vivek has also been advising various real estate clients in efficient tax structuring of the transactions, anti-profiteering related investigations.

Vivek is representing several companies on investigations carried out by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence and DGGST intelligence. He has been handling various core industry issues such as applicability of GST on salary cross charge and  representation before the Advance Ruling Authorities to seek clarity on issues such as classification, applicability of GST and availability of ITC. On the customs front, he has successfully obtained orders from Special Valuation Bench accepting the price declared on the invoice as assessable value.

Vivek has authored articles on diverse topics which were published by various tax publications and is regularly called upon to address conferences and seminars.

Vivek has recognized as Recommended for his expertise in Tax by The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific.

Prior to joining ELP, Vivek served with BMR & Associates.