Four areas where the rules are technical, the deadlines are unforgiving, and the penalty for a procedural slip is levied whether or not the underlying position was right.
Every international transaction between associated enterprises must be priced at arm's length. The documentation burden is layered, the deadlines are staggered, and the penalties for getting the paperwork wrong are levied independently of whether the pricing itself was defensible.
Cross-border tax turns on two questions asked in order: does India have the right to tax this income at all, and if so, has the treaty reduced that right. Getting the sequence wrong is what produces both over-withholding and unexpected demands.
FEMA is a civil statute, not a criminal one — but its reporting deadlines are short, they run from the transaction rather than the year end, and a contravention persists until it is compounded. Most FEMA problems are late filings rather than prohibited transactions.
The tax audit threshold is not one number. It moves with how much of your turnover is settled in cash, it differs for professionals, and it is displaced entirely where a presumptive scheme applies — which is why eligibility is decided far more often on the cash test than on the headline limit.