What are the career prospects as a lawyer in international taxation and transfer pricing? What are the job profiles and how is the career progression?

Additionally, is transfer pricing litigation taken up by lawyers and are there internship opportunities?

lawyers only practice international taxation in terms of structuring and as part of tax advisory. Transfer pricing studies are done by qualified CAs, CPAs etc. and not necessarily by lawyers

What about the transfer pricing disputes and litigation. Do lawyers get to do these casess?

It doesn't exist mostly. Deals are structured in such a way that disputes don't arise.

Yes transfer pricing litigation is obviously handled by lawyers. Disputes related to transfer pricing, advance assessment/pricing and basically any dispute between corporates and assessment authorities will be the domain of a lawyer.

Who else would do these cases?

Yes of course, when the IT department has found that certain transactions by a specific indian company were not at arm's length price, the company is pulled up and asked to pay the requisite amount of tax, if they don't then the same results into litigation going upto the SC. However, transfer pricing may be a small niche area within the area of tax litigation.

Hey, I work at a law firm that calls itself a "transfer pricing" specialized law firm but tbh work related to that is very less. Building a career just in international tax is very difficult as most work is done by CAs only. Instead, try focusing on direct tax practice as it includes transfer pricing work that you can get in between. Hope this helps.

So, a practice spanning both Domestic direct taxation and international taxation is what you're essentially saying is going to be better rather than just focusing on transfer pricing?

Yes. Transfer pricing in India for lawyers is very less/ difficult. I personally don't know anyone that has built their fortune by just focusing on transfer pricing.

Transfer pricing involves a lot of compliance... The documentation related to TP such as functional/ economic analysis are handled by CAs and economists. I once interviewed at a Big4 for a role in TP and the partner himself told me not to get into TP because technically, there is no law other than the few TP provisions under IT Act. Yes, the OECD TP guidelines and all are followed but basically it's just guidance and not law per se. Plus, TP issues mostly get resolved at DRP /ITAT level, since it's more factual than legal. And, at those levels, it's almost always handled by CAs. If the matters do go up to HC/SC level, yes it's handled by lawyers. But, scope is pretty limited to focus entirely on TP litigation. It's better to focus generally on direct tax, which itself can throw up lot of opportunities. TP compliance can also become repetitive to some extent and perhaps not the best idea for a lawyer, who neither has grip of accounting nor higher economics.

Doesn't this apply to direct taxes litigation as well? Isn't that also mostly settled at ITAT?

Not at all.... Trust our tax authorities to fight it up all the way to SC and then if SC rules against them, next budget will overturn the ruling... that's the reality in tax law!

Either you're lying or he is.
Cuz TP is a niche area no doubt but TP provisions are very much there in Income tax act.
Very few yes but they are

So how come there's is no law?

Ayush beta first year ke ho na? you contradicted your statement on your own. "TP is a nice area", "very few yes" lol. Go read the contract law book

You mean Trade Remedies, predatory pricing and anti-dumping duties?

Immensely limited.

clearly you have no idea what transfer pricing is!

@1.1 Trade Remedies include anti-dumping

Kuch bhi reply karna matlab!

Do you want gossip or real advice. Reach out to lawyers like Ajit Sharma (NALSAR), Arijit Prasad (senior advocate), Ashish Goel (NUJS), Sunil Agarwal (ex AZB), Mihir Naniwadekar (NLSIU), or one of the NDA lawyers. Very niche area of law!