Two half-papers with different personalities. Income Tax rewards computation discipline; GST rewards knowing the rule cold. Neither forgives an outdated amendment.
Taxation splits evenly between Income Tax and GST, and most students are noticeably stronger in one. The paper always contains a full computation of total income and tax liability, a set of GST application questions, and shorter provision-based questions across both halves. What makes this paper distinctive is that the correct answer changes between attempts: the applicable assessment year and the amendments in force decide it.
Marks
100 marks
Duration
3 hours
Negative marking
None in the descriptive part; check the notification for the objective part
Pass requirement
40% in the paper, 50% in group aggregate
Paper format
Income Tax 50 marks and GST 50 marks; part objective and part descriptive — confirm the current split in your exam notification
Confirm the pattern, marks split and any objective component against the ICAI notification for your own attempt before planning around it.
Computation plus provisions
One large total-income computation is near certain.
Application plus provisions
Supply, ITC, time and value of supply, registration.
Bands follow the weightage published by ICAI for the current scheme. Read them as a guide to study order, not as a prediction of any one paper.
The anchor question of Section A.
House property, PGBP, capital gains, other sources.
Classification questions with a computation attached.
Blocked credits and apportionment appear repeatedly.
Threshold and timeline recall.
Rate and threshold recall, examined every attempt.
These are the forms that come back attempt after attempt. Each one has an opening move — the thing to write down before you start computing.
A resident individual or firm with income under several heads, deductions and a tax computation.
How to attack it
Use a fixed skeleton — five heads, gross total income, Chapter VI-A deductions, total income, tax, surcharge, cess. Fill it in order and state a note for every item you exclude.
Outward supplies, inward supplies, blocked credits, and net cash payable.
How to attack it
Tabulate eligible and ineligible credit separately with a reason column. The reasons carry marks even where a figure is wrong.
Applicability, exemption, threshold or procedure under either Act.
How to attack it
State the provision, apply it to the facts, conclude. Quote the section where certain, and always state the assessment year or period you are answering for.
Whether a transaction falls within the charging provision, and at what value or time.
How to attack it
Work through the definition element by element rather than concluding from intuition. The marks are in the elements.
A starting plan for the paper. Adapt the order to your own strengths — the point is to walk in with an order decided, because deciding it in the hall is what leaves questions unattempted.
Read both sections and decide which half you will write first. Start with your stronger one — a good Section A settles the nerves for B.
Write your stronger section completely, big computation first while concentration is highest.
Write the other section. Do not let the weaker half eat the time budget of the stronger one.
Check the assessment year on every Income Tax answer and the notes on every excluded item.
Every one of these costs marks after the work was already done. They are the cheapest marks on the paper to recover.
What it costs
Correct method, wrong answer, across the paper
Do this instead
Confirm the assessment year and the amendments applicable to your attempt before you start preparing, not in the last week.
What it costs
Marks for reasoning you actually did
Do this instead
Every item you leave out of a computation needs a one-line note saying why. Those notes are separately marked.
What it costs
A capped score no matter how good the strong half is
Do this instead
Fifty marks each. An excellent Income Tax section cannot compensate for an abandoned GST section.
Still unsure about something? We're happy to help you figure it out.
Talk to usYour stronger one. Both are worth 50 marks, so there is no structural reason to follow the printed order, and opening with the section you are confident in protects the time budget of the other.
The ICAI exam notification and the study material for your attempt state it explicitly. This is the one detail worth verifying at the source rather than from any summary — every rate, threshold and limit in your answers follows from it.
It is more rule-driven and less computation-heavy, which many students find faster to score in. But it moves more between attempts, so material that is a year old is riskier here than in Income Tax. Neither half is optional.
Direct Tax Laws and International Taxation
A volume and currency paper. International taxation has become a reliable block, and last year's material is actively dangerous here.
Final · Paper 5Indirect Tax Laws
GST dominates and Customs is the reliable minority. The paper moves with the law, so currency of material matters more than volume of practice.
Intermediate · Paper 1Advanced Accounting
Accounting Standards decide this paper. The big consolidation and amalgamation questions look heavier, but the AS marks are more numerous and far easier to bank.
Please note
Weightage bands follow the skill-wise and chapter-wise weightage published in the ICAI syllabus and study material for the current scheme. Frequency labels (Every attempt / Most attempts / Alternate attempts / Occasional) describe recurring question forms observed across recent past papers and are editorial guidance, not an ICAI statistic — no breakdown here predicts what will be asked. Paper patterns, marks splits and the MCQ share change between schemes and notifications: always confirm against the exam notification and study material for your attempt before planning around any figure on this page.
Practise Taxation the way it is actually examined — past questions by chapter, full papers timed, and every answer evaluated step by step.
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