M&A transactions across various industries but most notably in the corporate insurance and reinsurance sectors.
If you could make one change to tax, what would it be?
Tax laws across the world are ever-changing for a variety of reasons, so it’s difficult to pinpoint just one. However, one tax, or rather duty, that I feel could do with some further modernisation is stamp duty. I think it is fair to say that the UK stamp duty regime is antiquated and while the UK government and HMRC appear to recognise the call for this modernisation, which is evident from its recent consultation on the modernisation of stamp taxes on shares framework, progress has been quite slow.
The length of time it takes for a buyer to perfect its legal title can often be frustrating and off-putting for prospective investors, particularly to those that are foreign and unfamiliar with the UK stamp taxes regime. The process for claiming group or other reliefs for transfers effected as part of a wider group restructuring can be equally, if not more, frustrating, in circumstances where there is a strong commercial desire or need to have up-to-date corporate shareholder registers.
Here’s to hoping that the Covid-19 temporary regime allowing submissions by email is here to stay – a baby step in making stamp duty digital.
Are there any new rules that are causing a particular problem?
The new UK/Luxembourg double tax treaty and the government consultation on sovereign immunity from direct taxation announced in July have caused somewhat of a stir. As a result, investors are now actively re-evaluating well-trodden UK investment structures as well as the competitive advantages (if any) of investing through, or doing business in, the UK.
Has a recent tax case caught your eye?
Few in the corporate tax world will have failed to notice the Upper Tribunal’s decision in HMRC v BlackRock Holdco 5, LLC [2022] UKUT 199 (TCC). I anticipate there could be some push back from my corporate and banking colleagues from a practical perspective if we were to suggest that all intragroup loan arrangements – whether interest bearing or not – must be formalised in writing and include borrower covenants akin to those given to third party lenders (potentially spanning hundreds of pages) in response to the Upper Tribunal’s conclusions on the transfer pricing issue.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
For a corporate tax lawyer, in addition to technical excellence, the ability to explain complex legal and tax analysis in simple everyday business terms is also essential.
I also wish I’d known how much time I would have to spend explaining to those outside the tax industry what tax practitioners ‘do’ – and what they don’t do. It makes me think that all tax practitioners should all put more effort into raising awareness in that regard.
What should we look out for later this year?
The enactment of Pillar Two across different jurisdictions in 2022 with a go live date of 2023 always seemed ambitious. I’ll be watching with keen interest to see if Pillar Two can be consistently implemented from one jurisdiction to another in order to achieve its aim of putting a floor on corporate income tax competition – or whether it will simply give rise to more international arbitrage distorting business decisions made across the world. Significant compliance burden for all multinationals within scope is expected to be a given.
You might not know this about me but...
I lived in the host city of the Olympic and Paralympic Games three times: Seoul (1988), Beijing (2008) and London (2012). I like to think my international background makes me well suited for my job in helping demystify the UK tax code to clients with different backgrounds and from other cultures.
M&A transactions across various industries but most notably in the corporate insurance and reinsurance sectors.
If you could make one change to tax, what would it be?
Tax laws across the world are ever-changing for a variety of reasons, so it’s difficult to pinpoint just one. However, one tax, or rather duty, that I feel could do with some further modernisation is stamp duty. I think it is fair to say that the UK stamp duty regime is antiquated and while the UK government and HMRC appear to recognise the call for this modernisation, which is evident from its recent consultation on the modernisation of stamp taxes on shares framework, progress has been quite slow.
The length of time it takes for a buyer to perfect its legal title can often be frustrating and off-putting for prospective investors, particularly to those that are foreign and unfamiliar with the UK stamp taxes regime. The process for claiming group or other reliefs for transfers effected as part of a wider group restructuring can be equally, if not more, frustrating, in circumstances where there is a strong commercial desire or need to have up-to-date corporate shareholder registers.
Here’s to hoping that the Covid-19 temporary regime allowing submissions by email is here to stay – a baby step in making stamp duty digital.
Are there any new rules that are causing a particular problem?
The new UK/Luxembourg double tax treaty and the government consultation on sovereign immunity from direct taxation announced in July have caused somewhat of a stir. As a result, investors are now actively re-evaluating well-trodden UK investment structures as well as the competitive advantages (if any) of investing through, or doing business in, the UK.
Has a recent tax case caught your eye?
Few in the corporate tax world will have failed to notice the Upper Tribunal’s decision in HMRC v BlackRock Holdco 5, LLC [2022] UKUT 199 (TCC). I anticipate there could be some push back from my corporate and banking colleagues from a practical perspective if we were to suggest that all intragroup loan arrangements – whether interest bearing or not – must be formalised in writing and include borrower covenants akin to those given to third party lenders (potentially spanning hundreds of pages) in response to the Upper Tribunal’s conclusions on the transfer pricing issue.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
For a corporate tax lawyer, in addition to technical excellence, the ability to explain complex legal and tax analysis in simple everyday business terms is also essential.
I also wish I’d known how much time I would have to spend explaining to those outside the tax industry what tax practitioners ‘do’ – and what they don’t do. It makes me think that all tax practitioners should all put more effort into raising awareness in that regard.
What should we look out for later this year?
The enactment of Pillar Two across different jurisdictions in 2022 with a go live date of 2023 always seemed ambitious. I’ll be watching with keen interest to see if Pillar Two can be consistently implemented from one jurisdiction to another in order to achieve its aim of putting a floor on corporate income tax competition – or whether it will simply give rise to more international arbitrage distorting business decisions made across the world. Significant compliance burden for all multinationals within scope is expected to be a given.
You might not know this about me but...
I lived in the host city of the Olympic and Paralympic Games three times: Seoul (1988), Beijing (2008) and London (2012). I like to think my international background makes me well suited for my job in helping demystify the UK tax code to clients with different backgrounds and from other cultures.
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