One India–US memo, signed off on both sides.
A real engagement, anonymised: client details removed, industries described only generically, numbers rounded. The point is the shape of the work — what the problem looked like, what we actually did, and what it changed.
The situation
A US-resident founder held a controlling interest in an Indian operating company, with payments flowing between the two sides. Three questions kept resurfacing: the correct DTAA treatment and Section 195 withholding on the cross-border payments, the Form 15CB position supporting each remittance, and whether the Indian company's earnings created a GILTI inclusion on the US side.
The complication
The client's Indian auditor and their US CPA each held a defensible position — and the positions did not agree. Months of conflicting advice had stalled filings on both sides: the Indian side would not certify remittances against a withholding view the US side disputed, and the US side would not finalise the GILTI computation against facts the Indian side characterised differently. Every new question spawned another three-way email thread.
Resolving a stalled two-adviser disagreement
When an Indian CA and a US CPA each hold a defensible-but-different position, the fix is rarely about who is right — it's one shared fact set and one memo addressing both technical questions at once. The two positions weren't actually independent: the DTAA/Section 195 withholding treatment on each payment stream feeds directly into the controlled-foreign-corporation facts the US side needed for GILTI. Drafting both analyses together against a single dossier, then walking both advisers through the same draft in one revision cycle, converts two separate unresolved arguments into one document either side can sign against — rather than settling one dispute and immediately hitting the next.
What we did
- Consolidated the facts both advisers were working from into a single dossier — shareholding, residency, payment flows, and the underlying contracts — so everyone argued from the same page.
- Prepared one India–US position memorandum: the DTAA analysis with article-level references, and the resulting Section 195 withholding treatment for each payment stream.
- Addressed the GILTI question head-on in the same memo — controlled-foreign-corporation status, the inclusion computation, and its interaction with Indian tax paid — framed so the US CPA could adopt it directly.
- Coordinated Form 15CB certification through a Chartered Accountant on our panel, with Form 15CA filed on positions consistent with the memo.
- Walked both advisers through the draft, resolved their comments in one revision cycle, and issued a final version each could sign off against.
The outcome
- A single position memo signed off by both the client's Indian auditor and their US CPA — one set of facts, one treaty analysis, one answer on GILTI.
- Filings that had been stalled for months on both sides proceeded on a consistent position.
- Future remittances run against the existing memo rather than reopening the same three-way debate each time.
More on this corridor in the India–US cross-border tax guide and on the Cross-Border Tax desk.