Shafi teaches taxation law at the Department of Business Law and Taxation. His research interests include tax law, tax policymaking, international and European taxation, and tax compliance. Prior to joining the academia at Monash University, Shafi worked for over 15 years at various positions including Deputy Commissioner, Additional Commissioner (Inland Revenue) and Chief (Litigation Management) in the tax administration (Federal Board of Revenue), specializing in tax enforcement, tax audits and tax policymaking. 

Shafi holds a PhD in Taxation from Monash Business School, for a thesis entitled "Could and should the European Union integrate Member States' income taxation systems?". He holds a Masters in Taxation Policy and Management from the Graduate School of Business & Commerce, Keio University, Tokyo, under the Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program. Shafi also holds an M. Phil in Genetics and Masters in Biological Sciences from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. 

Shafi has attended a year-long Practicum on Taxation at the National Graduate Institute of Policy Studies, Tokyo and National Tax College Japan, specializing in international tax law, Japanese taxation and the Japanese tax culture through field visits of offices of the National Tax Agency Japan. He is also an alumnus of the prestigious International Visitors Leadership Program offered by the U.S. State Department, and participated in their project tailored to study federal taxes at the Internal Revenue Service, Washington DC, state taxes in the New York City, and local/county taxation at the Oklahoma City, Sacramento and San Francisco. Shafi has also been a guest researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Tax Law and Public Finance, Munich.

Shafi's current research projects include work on cross-border profit shifting and anti-tax avoidance measures, the intersection of European State aid policy and taxation of multinational enterprises, and studies involving tax measures in FTAs.

In 2015, the International Fiscal Association (IFA Australian branch) awarded Shafi the Graham Hill-IFA research prize in international/comparative taxation. Shafi is a member of the Australasian Tax Teachers Association, and has also served as correspondent (Asia Pacific) for the Australian GST Journal.