Tax Law
GST notices, transfer pricing memos, and ITAT orders that read like graduate maths.
A day, honestly described.
A GST Show Cause Notice arrives in the morning. The client is a logistics platform; the SCN proposes a demand of ₹46 crore on the basis that the platform should be paying GST on the gross transaction value rather than on its commission. You spend three hours reading the SCN, the underlying ledger entries, the relevant CGST circulars, and the recent High Court decisions on intermediary services.
Tax practice splits into advisory and contentious. On the advisory side: structuring transactions for tax efficiency, drafting transfer-pricing documentation, preparing rulings applications before the Authority for Advance Rulings. On the contentious side: representing clients before the ITAT, the Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals), the GST Tribunal, the High Court, and the Supreme Court for tax appeals.
You will become fluent in the Income-tax Act 1961, the CGST Act 2017, the relevant state SGST acts, the customs legislation, and an enormous body of judicial precedent. The reading load is the heaviest of any commercial practice on this list. The compensating return is that good tax lawyers are scarce — once you have five years of substantive depth, the market is generous.
Where the work happens. Who hires. What you'll be paid.
Where the work happens
Recruitment pathway
Tax teams at firms recruit through standard NLU/non-NLU PPO funnels. Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan (LKS) recruits at scale and is the most accessible entry into substantive tax practice for non-NLU candidates. Chambers recruit through writing samples and direct application.
A summer internship with a tax practice is the strongest signal. CA-qualification or CA-articleship-during-LLB is a meaningful credential — not required, but it accelerates the first three years materially. Published case-comments on recent tax judgments (CIT vs Vodafone, Engineering Analysis, Mohit Minerals) carry weight in interviews.
First-year vs senior associate
Reading judgments. Drafting written submissions and grounds of appeal under partner review. Filing rectification applications. You will not appear before tribunals. You will read more than you write. The skill being built is statutory and case-law fluency.
You appear before the CIT(A) and ITAT independently on second-tier matters. You draft appeals end-to-end. You lead transfer-pricing documentation projects with the senior reviewing. On advisory side, you structure transactions and write tax-opinions in your own name with partner sign-off.
Compensation bands (approximate)
What law students consistently lack — and how to fix it.
Each gap below is something we have heard from Tax Law hiring partners. The simulation column is what closes it before your first internship.
Reading a Show Cause Notice for what it has and has not pleaded — students miss the procedural defects that allow the matter to be quashed at threshold.
The Iura tax simulation walks you through a real-shape SCN; you draft the reply and the model answer shows the procedural challenges first.
No exposure to transfer-pricing methodology — comparables, functional analysis, ALP determination — yet TP is the largest tax-litigation category by demand value in India.
A TP fact pattern with a structured analytical framework as the model answer.
Inability to read a circular or notification for the carve-out the drafter intended — most tax-advisory turns on these subtleties.
A circular-interpretation task with the senior's annotated reading.
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Tax practice is the most demanding reading load on this list, and one of the highest-paying long-term tracks. The first three years are heavy on memorisation; the next ten are where the depth pays off. If this is your area, intern at LKS or a Tier-1 tax team in your 3rd-year summer.