A business decision can look simple until all of its consequences are analyzed.
An investment, a financing transaction, a contract, an import, a corporate reorganization, or a transaction with a foreign company can carry legal, accounting, financial, and tax implications that are not always evident at the moment of deciding.
That is why at Orienta Legal we approach tax advice from a different perspective: we do not analyze the tax after the decision has been made; we seek to build it into the decision from the start.
Our work consists of first understanding the transaction, identifying its implications, and evaluating the available alternatives so that the company can decide with sufficient information and a proper understanding of the risk.
Understanding the business before talking about the tax
Tax questions usually arrive framed in very concrete terms, but behind every question there is a business transaction.
Answering correctly requires understanding what is actually being done, how the price is determined, who assumes each obligation, how the transaction is documented, how it is recorded in the accounts, and what financial effects it produces.
Only after understanding that context is it possible to determine the appropriate tax treatment.
Working this way means the advice is not limited to identifying obligations: it helps evaluate alternatives and make business decisions with a comprehensive tax perspective.
The experience of having seen tax from both sides
For nearly ten years, this perspective was also built from the other side of the tax relationship, as a professional at the Servicio de Impuestos Nacionales (Bolivia's national tax authority), which allowed direct participation in the analysis and handling of tax controversies from the Administration's point of view.
That experience adds a particularly relevant dimension to the advice: understanding that a tax position must not only be legally correct, but also coherent with the reality of the transaction, consistent with its records, and properly supported by the documentation the company can produce.
When there is an audit or a controversy, these elements take on special importance. And when the decision is still to be made, they make it possible to anticipate where the questions may arise and what should be documented from the outset.
Planning is not a search for artifice
Tax planning does not consist of finding an artificial way to reduce taxes.
It consists of analyzing, within the legal framework, the different alternatives that exist for a transaction and understanding the consequences of each one.
In certain circumstances, the difference may lie in how a transaction is structured, in the moment it is executed, in the contractual obligations that are established, in the documentation that supports it, or in how it fits together with the group's other transactions. That is where tax advice can generate real value.
A perspective that integrates law, accounting, economics, and finance
Business transactions do not take place within a single discipline.
A structure can be legally valid and financially inconvenient. An alternative can be efficient from a tax standpoint and yet create accounting or contractual difficulties. An international transaction may require analyzing different rules and jurisdictions simultaneously.
That is why tax advice demands an understanding of the transaction as a whole.
Training in tax law has been complemented with specialized studies in accounting, taxation, economics, finance, and international taxation, including at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina), the Universidad Austral (Argentina), Maastricht University (the Netherlands), and the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina).
This combination makes it possible to approach tax decisions from different perspectives and, above all, to understand how a legal and tax decision impacts the numbers, the structure, and the business.
From the business to the defense
The advice does not end once the transaction has been executed.
When there is an audit, an observation, or a controversy with the tax administration, the analysis must return to the origin. That is why our work combines preventive advice with the capacity for defense. The best defense often begins before any controversy exists, while it is still possible to make decisions, put the documentation in order, and leave the criterion applied clearly supported.
When the controversy already exists, that same comprehensive understanding makes it possible to build a position that does not depend solely on an interpretation of the rules, but can explain and demonstrate the economic and legal reality of the transaction.
A practice for complex decisions
At Orienta Legal we accompany companies and business groups when a decision requires looking beyond its immediate effect and understanding its tax, legal, accounting, and financial implications.
We take part from the structuring of transactions and businesses, both domestic and international, through the identification and management of tax contingencies. When the conflict already exists, we accompany the client in its dealings with the tax administration and in the defense of its positions.
The purpose is the same at every stage: to help make informed decisions, anticipate risks, and build positions that can hold.
Structure. Anticipate. Defend.
Tax advice can come into play at different moments of a business decision: when a transaction is structured, when its risks are evaluated, and when a position must be sustained before the tax administration.
Three moments, one same outlook: understand the transaction, evaluate its consequences, and build a position that can hold.
Because tax work should not begin when an audit arrives. It should begin when the company starts to make the decision.
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