Taxation
A vibrant and successful tax speciality has been built up in Chambers in recent years. The context is that traditional taxes, new direct and indirect taxes, and European rules and impositions are each allied to increasingly aggressive practice by H.M. Revenue & Customs often encouraged by bold statutory interpretation.  This may bring a burdensome complication and difficulty to modern taxpayer’s private and commercial life.

In turn, the taxpayer requires highly skilled and competent legal advice. With innovative thinking, good judgment and technical expertise, we provide that and try to resolve problems and provide practical solutions. If litigation must proceed, then we undertake representation both at home in every pertinent tribunal and Court, and often abroad.

Our skills and experience cover the full range of direct and indirect tax - both personal and corporate. This includes widely acknowledged expertise on the tax consequences of complex trust arrangements at home and offshore; the sale of family companies; inheritance and business tax reliefs; and issues of residence and domicile. We have skill and experience in advising on “back duty”, negligence by tax professionals and judicial review of unfair actions by HMRC. We also undertake tax litigation in foreign common law jurisdictions.

In terms of corporate tax, we cover company mergers, acquisitions, demergers and group reconstructions; the current judicial approach to commercial accounting, computation of profits and proper deductions against receipts; transfer pricing, double tax treaty problems and European Union cross border tax issues; the application of HMRC practices and concessions and prospects for successful judicial review if such are not implemented.

In each sphere of taxation, we find a demand to dovetail our advice and expertise with other Chambers’ specialities such as trusts, pensions, insolvency and commercial litigation.