Mr. Gaurav Pundir

Gaurav is a member of the Indian Revenue Service and holds around a decade of professional experience working for the country’s Income-tax Department in various capacities. He is an ace financial crime investigator and has held conducted numerous search and seizure actions as a Deputy Director of Investigations during 2012-17. Basis the electronic and documentary evidences gathered by him while particularly leveraging the OECD-Global Forum Exchange of Information Upon Request (EOIR), he was instrumental in detecting unaccounted foreign assets and income of the Indian taxpayers to the tune of $ 5 million. 

From 2017-19, he has also served as an Under Secretary with the Central Board of Direct Taxes – India’s apex direct tax administration body wherein he had handled the first batch of data received by the country under the OECD- Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) regime.

Later, during 2021-22, while working as a Joint Commissioner in the international taxation vertical, he handled more than 100 cases of taxation of non-resident companies and individuals. Upon due-diligence, he mitigated tax risks posed by nearly 30 sham corporate structures used by the MNEs for base erosion and profit shifting. It ranged from establishing Place of Effective Management (POEM) of an offshore investor company in India, to determining the true nature of receipts derived by a global cloud-services providing MNE from India and alleviating tax risks presented by an MNE through artificial splitting of a composite contract by establishing a Fixed Place PE in India. He has extensive experience of harmonizing domestic tax laws and tax treaty provisions while assessing cases under his tax jurisdiction.

Currently, since 2022, as a Deputy Secretary, he is orchestrating the priorities helmed by the Indian G20 Presidency for the trade and investment under the G20 Trade and Investment Working Group. He has successfully organized three Working Meetings in which more than 200 delegates from G20 members, invitees and international organizations participated. He has formulated action-oriented and concrete outcomes for the Presidency which are focused on evolving principles for paperless trade, ensuring seamless flow of information for MSMEs and devising a mapping framework for investment in GVCs.

Gaurav holds a B.Tech. (Hons.) in Electrical Engineering from IIT-BHU and a Masters of Public Administration from Columbia University.