We want LI to be one of the friendliest places on the internet, where lawyers and law students help each other with their career related queries and occasionally discuss other stuff that might affect their lives too. In other words:
1. Be kind, respectful and helpful to each other.
2. Be bona fide, truthful, genuine and curious.
3. Assume the best intention of others.
Therefore, in using the site, you must agree to do your best to uphold these community guidelines.
Note that what you find here is written and moderated by anonymous people on the internet.
Therefore everything you read here is very likely unverified, rumour, speculation and/or downright false.
In continuing to read anything here, you must therefore agree not to take anything you read here as factual and that you will exercise due caution, diligence and common sense before acting on any information you may come across here.
You also agree to report any inaccurate or malicious comments with the buttons. Moderators take action within 24 hours, as required and appropriate under law.
Our full terms and conditions apply too.
Do you solemnly agree to all of the above?
Depends a lot on the firm. Some like Vaish, DMD, ELP, AZB Delhi do a lot of tax litigation matters. Otherwise, tax teams largely do advisory and transactional work. For advisory, the work generally involves responding to specific queries of the clients. In transactions, it generally involves working on deals, structuring in the most tax efficient manner, negotiating W&I tax insurance. Additionally, tax teams in general spend a lot of time reading up on developments and writing articles (given how much the law changes on a daily basis).
Tax practice requires an enormous 'knowledge' of the law and familiarity with accounting practices, which takes years to develop. Freshly graduating lawyers from the 5-year programme are nowhere close to a CA in terms of their understanding of tax laws. Which is why a freshly minted CA would generally be preferable to a freshly minted lawyer for a tax team. Given how intellectually demanding this can be, lawyers do not often enter this area.
That being said, once that knowledge gap is bridged through self-learning, there is practically no difference between a lawyer and CA. In fact, there could be advantages to being a lawyer as well (depending on how much attention you've paid in subjects like contracts, jurisprudence, international law, constitutional law, admin law, family law, criminal law, etc.). Given the heavy jurisprudential nature of tax law, it has significant intersections with various other areas of law as well. You can also differentiate yourself by getting better at how technology works, as tax lawyers often have to understand the nuances of some tech for its tax implications. As you rise through the profession, these intersections are what set you apart.
In short, CAs and Lawyers both have their strengths and weaknesses. It all depends on how much you are willing to self-learn and reach into the domain of the other. Harish Salve began as a CA and developed a reputation as among the best tax litigators in the country. Nishit Desai began as a lawyer and developed a reputation as among the best transactional tax lawyers in the country. Nothing is really written in stone.