United Kingdom

Director: Tax Investigations & Dispute Resolution

KPMG LLP

London

+44 (0)20 7311 2487

kevin.elliott@kpmg.co.uk

home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/services/tax/dispute-resolution-controversy.html

Languages: English

Kevin's entire career has focused on resolving tax disputes, including nearly 20 years at HMRC and over 10 years at KPMG.

Kevin has experience of helping corporate and private clients protect against, manage and resolve a wide variety of tax disputes.

Kevin has assisted:

• A global pharmaceutical group in successfully appealing a discovery assessment issued by HMRC seeking to deny any relief for a £69m royalty payment.

• A corporate client that had received a discovery assessment from HMRC going back 20 years based on an assertion that the business had deliberately submitted incorrect tax returns by manipulation of stock valuation.

• A US headquartered group with the voluntary disclosure of transfer pricing adjustments in several countries.

Audit defence, Dispute resolution, Pre-litigation, MAPs/ADRs, Controversy management

Kevin is a CEDR accredited mediator and assists clients with Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Joint head of chambers

39 Essex Chambers

London

+44 (0) 20 7832 1111

alison.foster@39essex.com

www.39essex.com

Alison Foster QC is the joint head of chambers at 39 Essex Chambers. As a highly successful public lawyer with particular expertise in contentious taxation involving EU law and ECHR matters, she has acted both for the taxpayer and the revenue for the whole of her career. She has appeared in some of the highest profile cases and at all levels of the court and tribunal system. Her in-depth public law and regulatory knowledge, together with her outstanding advocacy, have led to instructions across most areas of taxation – she specialises in complex matters requiring careful, persuasive advocacy.

Much of her private work is confidential, but examples of her reported cases range from the Jaffa Cakes VAT litigation to R. (on the application of de Silva) v Revenue and Customs Commissioners (Court of Appeal) [2016] S.T.C. 1333; [2016] B.T.C. 6; (recently heard in the Supreme Court) involving direct taxation and reliefs concerning the film industry and Isle of Wight & Others v HMRC [2015] EWCA Civ 1303; [2016] P.T.S.R. 620 – a competition law case involving principles of VAT and public law and billions of pounds of alleged lost revenue.

More recently she has successfully defended HMRC's 45% withholding tax in a decision released on July 12 2017. In BAT Industries and others v HMRC [2017] UKFTT 558 (July 12 2017), the First-tier Tribunal found that CTA 2010 Part 8C was lawful. Several companies of the BAT group had appealed against the deduction of withholding tax on payments of restitution interest awarded to BAT as test claimants in the "Franked Investment Income Group Litigation Order". Alison led a team comprising a specialist tax silk and four juniors resisting an EU law and ECHR challenge to a corporation tax measure.

The legal directories list Alison as a leading barrister in each of her specialisations and she is described as "absolutely excellent and everything you want in a silk, "very approachable and clear" and a "wonderful barrister; high on the list for difficult cases". She also won Barrister of the Year 2016 at the Modern Law Awards.

Alison is a deputy high court judge of the Chancery Division.

Barrister

39 Essex Chambers

London

+44 (0) 20 7832 1111

ksc@39essex.com

www.39essex.com

Kelly Stricklin-Coutinho is a barrister at 39 Essex Chambers, where she specialises in tax disputes, international tax and EU tax.

Her tax disputes experience includes litigation at every level of English court and tax tribunal, and cases before the CJEU. She has represented claimants in judicial review proceedings across a wide range of taxes, direct and indirect. She has acted in arbitral proceedings, including those with tax issues. Kelly has also acted on a number of high value enquiries in respect of both international tax issues and on domestic tax disputes, and on a number of high value settlements.

Kelly's clients include a broad range of multinationals, FTSE 100 and 250 companies, local authorities, government bodies, major insurers, high-net-worth individuals and SMEs.

Her experience includes the following.

High value tax enquiries on a number of issues, including controlled foreign corporations, debt cap, group and loss relief; double tax treaty disputes; advising on the compatibility of aspects of corporation taxes with state aid law; settlements; and restitution claims.

Representing a client in their complaint before the European Commission; acting in a proposed reference to the CJEU in respect of VAT avoidance and abuse; acting as junior counsel in a proposed group litigation order in respect of 300 claimants; advising in respect of compound interest claims; advising on VAT in respect of land and property; and claims for restitution.

Anti-dumping duty; import duty and VAT; environmental taxes (landfill tax, climate change levy, aggregates levy); IR35 and inheritance tax.

Kelly trained at the Directorate General for Taxation and Customs at the European Commission, in the direct tax policy analysis unit where she was involved in the proposal for and drafting of a proposed directive on double tax dispute resolution.

Prior to joining 39 Essex Chambers, she worked in the award winning team running the FII GLO (dividend tax), the CFC and Dividend GLO (CFCs and portfolio dividends), the Thin Cap GLO (thin cap and transfer pricing) and the Marks & Spencer (final losses) cases. She also advised on high-value tax enquiries. She has experience of working in a Big 4 firm.

Kelly is a visiting lecturer at King's College London. She convened the EU Tax Law course for a number of years and teaches on the Internal Market course.

She is ranked in the Legal 500 for VAT, EU Law and Competition Law.