Tax Law

[Chambertin]

3 minutes ago, Kimura said:

Very good points. As a summer student one of the first files I worked on was a GST/HST collection dispute. The only time GST/HST was brought up during school is when a professor mentioned how it deserves a course all on its own lol. 

I am not sure there is enough appetite on the part of students even at big school like Osgoode to make an entire course on HST economically viable. Or maybe I'm wrong. But it's crazy to essentially just ignore the ETA in tax courses at law school when in practice, it is extremely significant. And it's baffling when you can explain the entire ETA in a lecture, minus 2000 pages of extremely complex, difficult and very specific rules, which you don't need to deal with until if and when you come across them. But tell people what a registrant is, ITC, supply, zero-rated vs exempt, small supplier, and so on, and stop there. That would be a great help!

[Kurrika]

Had a conversation with someone today who was an indirect tax specialist and they seemed to be happy and making a lot of money.

[easttowest]

16 minutes ago, Kurrika said:

Had a conversation with someone today who was an indirect tax specialist and they seemed to be happy and making a lot of money.

Sounds great. Doesn’t work.

[Kurrika]

Well they were working for a major online retailer so, I think they've got a lot of work just keeping track of all the vat rules all over the world.

[Kimura]

Anyone excited for the upcoming Federal Budget release this Thursday?

Edited April 3, 2022 by Kimura

[Fruitdealer]

Say no to notifiable transactions!

[Songbird]

On 4/3/2022 at 3:22 AM, Fruitdealer said:

Say no to notifiable transactions!

Here's hoping that whatever prescribed form they land on, is e-fillable. Not looking forward to the scramble to get prepared and submitted.

 

Edited April 4, 2022 by Songbird

[Songbird]

Budget's out: https://budget.gc.ca/2022/report-rapport/toc-tdm-en.html

[Fruitdealer]

42 minutes ago, Songbird said:

Budget's out: https://budget.gc.ca/2022/report-rapport/toc-tdm-en.html

Hurray, they left our CGs alone.

[Skweemish]

Lol since I apparently just use this forum for "what is happening in my career" updates:

Firm life didn't work out. Gave notice recently.

Because Finance hired me. So next time you see an income tax measure and you go "what the fuck?"

😎😎😎 This guy 😎😎😎

[tiktok]

I am at a school where NY BigLaw participates in its OCIs. I have noticed that the people that get offers usually practice either corporate/M&A or litigation. If I want to practice tax in the USA, is it imperative that I have an LLM in taxation from let's say NYU or Georgetown?  

Edited August 7, 2022 by tiktok

[Chambertin]

On 8/5/2022 at 3:53 PM, Skweemish said:

Lol since I apparently just use this forum for "what is happening in my career" updates:

Firm life didn't work out. Gave notice recently.

Because Finance hired me. So next time you see an income tax measure and you go "what the fuck?"

😎😎😎 This guy 😎😎😎

Nice! Where are you based out for Finance (is it federal?)

[Skweemish]

13 minutes ago, Chambertin said:

Nice! Where are you based out for Finance (is it federal?)

It is Federal! I haven't found out which specific group I'll be inflicted upon, and have no strong preferences in that regard. I will be working remotely from Halifax, but yeah it's the Ottawa Mothership. Basically just getting all that security stuff done now.

[Chambertin]

2 hours ago, Skweemish said:

It is Federal! I haven't found out which specific group I'll be inflicted upon, and have no strong preferences in that regard. I will be working remotely from Halifax, but yeah it's the Ottawa Mothership. Basically just getting all that security stuff done now.

Oh that's interesting so you are able to have a permanent Ottawa/MOF position and work in Halifax indefinitely? 

[Skweemish]

13 hours ago, Chambertin said:

Oh that's interesting so you are able to have a permanent Ottawa/MOF position and work in Halifax indefinitely? 

Apparently! I am as shocked as you are, to be quite honest.

[WhoKnows]

If anyone has advice for a junior M&A associate who is interested in making a move into the tax world, I'd love to hear it. 

[Kimura]

6 minutes ago, WhoKnows said:

If anyone has advice for a junior M&A associate who is interested in making a move into the tax world, I'd love to hear it. 

Just out of curiosity, why are you thinking of making the jump? 

[WhoKnows]

1 hour ago, Kimura said:

Just out of curiosity, why are you thinking of making the jump? 

The short answer: a legal career is far too long to do something you're just not that into.

The long answer: I kinda fell into the corporate world via a combination of regulatory (articling requirement) and financial (post-articling) necessity. I always felt it was fine, and IMO I'm pretty decent at it, given my year of call. But I'm honestly pretty bored. There's a lot of "doing" in M&A, in the sense that the closing documents need to be prepared or reviewed, the list of consent-required contracts needs to be prep'd, etc. But I much prefer the advising side of the law. I want to take a set of facts, read, understand, and think about the law as needed, and then advise the client on their options. Most of that in M&A is done at the accounting/tax/business level, and while the M&A folks negotiate the finer deal points, even from what I've seen the partner level that doesn't change a whole lot. I can't see myself doing it for 30 years, and I don't derive satisfaction from closing a deal, which is what seems to make a lot of partners tick.

Every time I've done work/worked with folks on the heavily regulated areas (environmental, public securities, tax being a few) that work is just far more interesting. I struggle with it more, and it makes my brain work. The clients generally know they can't do what the tax/enviro/etc. lawyers do, and the more macro deal lawyers lean on them significantly for their expertise. I'd rather be that, and I think tax would provide it. Plus, whenever I've had to do preliminary research into a bit of tax law, I love how complex it is. I actually enjoy it. I'm willing to do the work to become a SME, so why not move if it's feasible? Maybe one of the tax folks will tell me. 

Edited August 9, 2022 by WhoKnows

[Fruitdealer]

32 minutes ago, WhoKnows said:

The short answer: a legal career is far too long to do something you're just not that into.

The long answer: I kinda fell into the corporate world via a combination of regulatory (articling requirement) and financial (post-articling) necessity. I always felt it was fine, and IMO I'm pretty decent at it, given my year of call. But I'm honestly pretty bored. There's a lot of "doing" in M&A, in the sense that the closing documents need to be prepared or reviewed, the list of consent-required contracts needs to be prep'd, etc. But I much prefer the advising side of the law. I want to take a set of facts, read, understand, and think about the law as needed, and then advise the client on their options. Most of that in M&A is done at the accounting/tax/business level, and while the M&A folks negotiate the finer deal points, even from what I've seen the partner level that doesn't change a whole lot. I can't see myself doing it for 30 years, and I don't derive satisfaction from closing a deal, which is what seems to make a lot of partners tick.

Every time I've done work/worked with folks on the heavily regulated areas (environmental, public securities, tax being a few) that work is just far more interesting. I struggle with it more, and it makes my brain work. The clients generally know they can't do what the tax/enviro/etc. lawyers do, and the more macro deal lawyers lean on them significantly for their expertise. I'd rather be that, and I think tax would provide it. Plus, whenever I've had to do preliminary research into a bit of tax law, I love how complex it is. I actually enjoy it. I'm willing to do the work to become a SME, so why not move if it's feasible? Maybe one of the tax folks will tell me. 

Totally agree with the why and I have generally had the same impression, but from other side. I started and stayed in tax the the entire time.

I will note that my experience has been that earlier on, you're still going to be doing a lot of routine document drafting which pretty much looks the same regardless of whether you're in M&A or tax and more of the "fun" things happen at a higher experience level. Practically speaking, new tax lawyers are not usually in a position to provide the high level advice/expertise.

My understanding is that the "traditional" way that people became tax lawyers was to do corporate/M&A law for a couple of years and then make an internal move into tax. If you are in a full service firm with a tax group, you may be able to express your interest in doing more tax work and get more involved with drafting the tax documents and whatnot and use that as an opportunity to change practice groups. You might also get a tax LLM to help facilitate this.

Most external tax openings will expect you to already have experience in tax, so I expect (though don't know for sure) that it would be difficult to lateral outside with no experience. That said, the entry DoJ tax lawyer positions don't require tax experience but that will be getting you into tax lit, which it doesn't sound you are particularly interested in, and a massive pay cut.

[WhoKnows]

45 minutes ago, Fruitdealer said:

Totally agree with the why and I have generally had the same impression, but from other side. I started and stayed in tax the the entire time.

I will note that my experience has been that earlier on, you're still going to be doing a lot of routine document drafting which pretty much looks the same regardless of whether you're in M&A or tax and more of the "fun" things happen at a higher experience level. Practically speaking, new tax lawyers are not usually in a position to provide the high level advice/expertise.

My understanding is that the "traditional" way that people became tax lawyers was to do corporate/M&A law for a couple of years and then make an internal move into tax. If you are in a full service firm with a tax group, you may be able to express your interest in doing more tax work and get more involved with drafting the tax documents and whatnot and use that as an opportunity to change practice groups. You might also get a tax LLM to help facilitate this.

Most external tax openings will expect you to already have experience in tax, so I expect (though don't know for sure) that it would be difficult to lateral outside with no experience. That said, the entry DoJ tax lawyer positions don't require tax experience but that will be getting you into tax lit, which it doesn't sound you are particularly interested in, and a massive pay cut.

I appreciate the response, looks like I need to seek out some tax work. I'm certainly not trying to weasle my way out of drafting basic documents, that wouldn't be realistic. I can deal with boring work, I'd just like it to be balanced out by some work that satisfies me a bit more. Re: the advising clients point - I don't have competence to be advising them directly anyway, I'd be just as happy writing a memo draft for a partner to help on that side. I dig researching - I like pulling the thread of a puzzle and figuring it out. 

On the DOJ point, I'd happily get into tax lit. No fear of advocacy here, hell, the (non-courtroom) advocacy I do for clients now excites me. I just figured my extremely limited lit experience (some memos, a law school moot, no formal courtroom experience) a few years into practice would preclude it. Probably not as big a paycut as you'd think. 

Edited August 9, 2022 by WhoKnows
Typo

[Chambertin]

3 hours ago, WhoKnows said:

I appreciate the response, looks like I need to seek out some tax work. I'm certainly not trying to weasle my way out of drafting basic documents, that wouldn't be realistic. I can deal with boring work, I'd just like it to be balanced out by some work that satisfies me a bit more. Re: the advising clients point - I don't have competence to be advising them directly anyway, I'd be just as happy writing a memo draft for a partner to help on that side. I dig researching - I like pulling the thread of a puzzle and figuring it out. 

On the DOJ point, I'd happily get into tax lit. No fear of advocacy here, hell, the (non-courtroom) advocacy I do for clients now excites me. I just figured my extremely limited lit experience (some memos, a law school moot, no formal courtroom experience) a few years into practice would preclude it. Probably not as big a paycut as you'd think. 

I think you would have a hard time getting into DOJ tax lit if you have neither tax or litigation experience. DOJ does hire people without tax experience but they generally have litigation experience and are expected to pick up the tax knowledge as they go along. 

 

In terms of moving to tax, if you're at a full service firm, your best bet, as mentioned is to express interest in tax and try to get involved to get exposure so that when the tax group needs someone, you become a natural fit. 

 

Either that or moving to another firm that has a direct need for tax but can train you on it/building on your M&A skills. 

[Mal]

On 8/9/2022 at 7:18 AM, Skweemish said:

Apparently! I am as shocked as you are, to be quite honest.

Welcome, I work for Finance Canada (in Ottawa). What division are you going to be in?

[Skweemish]

3 minutes ago, Mal said:

Welcome, I work for Finance Canada (in Ottawa). What division are you going to be in?

A very good question. I've been told a lot of folk are on vacation so they haven't decided yet! Hopefully I'll be told in the next two weeks or so..

[Chambertin]

Speaking of Finance Canada, they dropped this little nugget on August 9.

Modernizing and Strengthening the General Anti-Avoidance Rule

Recommendations include making a 'choice' an avoidance transaction, relieving the Minister of their burden to prove the object and spirit of the Act and extended the reassessment period for GAAR. 🤔

[easttowest]

Pretty wild stuff.