On how she developed her practice:
Rosalie told the Tax Institute that she started her legal career in family law and found that when properties were involved, she often needed to focus her attention on tax and duty issues.
“I wanted to understand issues myself, rather than having to rely on accountants, tax lawyers or counsel for input on valuation issues and the drafting of orders. To this end, I started a Master of Taxation at Monash University and, before too long, I became a tax lawyer and have been working in tax for about 17 years now.”
“Before crossing over to the dark side of indirect tax, I was a senior associate and special counsel in direct tax at a top-tier multinational and mid-tier law firms in Brisbane,” she said.
Now, as a special counsel at Arnold Bloch Leibler, Rosalie advises on stamp duty and land tax implications of a broad range of complex transactions nationally.
With no uniform rules across states and territories, she says that questions and obligations surrounding duty exemptions and concessions for trusts can often leave practitioners feeling confused.
“Trusts in general are an ever-present and tricky part of many tax professional’s work” and “duty exemptions and concessions add an extra layer of complexity. But avoiding the issues is not the right strategy.”
On her upcoming presentation with the Tax Institute:
As founding chair of the Tax Institute’s Queensland State Taxes Committee, Rosalie’s presentation to the 2021 Trust Intensive Series in September will focus on ‘Tips and Traps: Duty exemptions and concessions for trusts’.
Some of the content of her presentation will be well known to tax practitioners, she says, but other areas of focus will be less familiar. “In 50 minutes, attendees will not become duty experts but should gain a greater understanding of the available options,” she said.” My goal is to demystify the process of determining whether a duty exemption or concession is available.”
To read the interview in full, click here.
To find out more about the Tax Institute’s Trust Intensive Series, click here.
