Vikna Rajah

Practice Areas

Vikna Rajah is Head of the Tax and Private Client Departments at Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP, and Co-Heads the South Asia Desk at Rajah & Tann Asia.

Vikna advises clients on complex income tax, GST, stamp duty, property tax and tax treaty issues, and specialises in contentious civil tax disputes with IRAS, tax structuring and criminal tax litigation. He has a track record of successfully and effectively resolving multi-million-dollar disputes with IRAS and is regularly instructed by multi-national companies, other top-tier law firms and Big 4 accounting firms.

Vikna has been consistently recognised as “Highly Regarded” in “Tax Controversy” by International Tax Review World Tax 2021 – 2024 and a “Litigation Star” by Benchmark Litigation APAC 2020 – 2024. He is ranked as a “Distinguished Practitioner” in tax by Asialaw Profiles 2020 – 2023, a “Leading Individual” in tax by The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2017 – 2024, and a leading tax lawyer by Chambers Asia-Pacific 2018 – 2024.

He led the Tax Practice to clinch Singapore’s Tax Disputes and Litigation Firm of the Year by the International Tax Review 2017. He is praised in legal directories as being “best of the best”, an “experienced litigator” with “extensive tax knowledge”, and “an extremely intelligent man” who is “excellent to work with”. He also combines “very deep technical expertise with acute commercial acumen”, while “carefully listening to his clients and putting himself in their shoes”, with the ability to “make the impossible possible”.

Vikna is also acclaimed as a leading Trust & Private Wealth lawyer in Southeast Asia and is recognised as the go-to lawyer for novel, complicated cross-border estate planning and structuring.

He is regularly engaged to advise leading trust companies and ultra-high net worth families to create family offices and multi-generational trusts that best address their succession planning needs, thereby ensuring the smooth transition of the management and ownership of operating companies to preserve their value. To date, Vikna has advised on the setting up of approximately 100 family offices in Singapore.

Vikna has been ranked “Recommended” in “Private Client” and "Southeast Asia – Private Client” by Who’s Who Legal 2017 – 2023, a “Leading Individual” for Private Wealth by The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific 2017 – 2024 and a Band 1 Lawyer in Private Wealth law by Chambers High Net Worth Guide 2018 – 2023. Most recently, he won “Lawyer of the Year” for Trusts and Estates in Singapore by The Best Lawyers in Singapore 2022, as well as “Private Client Lawyer of the Year” at The Asia Legal Awards 2017.

Vikna is recognised as one of the Top 15 Private Wealth Lawyers by Asian Legal Business 2022 and one of the world’s Top 250 Private Client Lawyers by ALM’s Private Client Global Elite Directory 2020 – 2024.

Vikna has been awarded Legal Era Global Achievers Awards 2024 Cross Border Lawyer of the Year – Private Client, and was also recognised in the International A-List 2022 – 2023 by the India Business Law Journal for exceptional India-related international work. The Private Wealth Practice which he leads was awarded Best Private Client Team in Southeast Asia by WealthBriefingAsia Awards 2022.