BA LLB (Hons) LLM FTIA

Consultant

John King joined Prolegis Lawyers as a consultant in September 2011. John has a wealth of experience in taxation law on which to draw.

After joining Mallesons Stephen Jaques in 1972, he became a tax partner in the firm in 1979 and remained in this position until his retirement on 31 December 2010. From 1986-88 he was the resident partner in the firm’s then representative office in New York.

After graduating in Arts and Law from Sydney University, he completed a Master of Laws at the London School of Economics.

During his 31 years as a tax partner at Mallesons, his practice focused mostly on domestic and cross border financial services and capital markets transactions and products, inbound and outbound investment, and trusts and partnerships. On many occasions he successfully lobbied the federal Government, Treasury and Parliament to have pending or existing tax legislation amended.

However, for much of his professional career and especially over the last decade, he also advised on complex tax and related issues affecting charities, universities, cultural bodies, sporting clubs, other not-for-profit entities (amongst them, some iconic NSW institutions) and the philanthropic sector generally. Issues included:

• The introduction of Workplace Giving in Australia.
• Private and Public Ancillary Funds.
• Necessitous Circumstances Funds.
• Other cultural and philanthropic foundations, trusts, corporate entities and associations.
• The reorganisation or restructuring of a prominent charitable trust (involving a court approved Administrative Scheme and related steps).
• Successfully lobbying to procure changes to the Charitable Trusts Act (NSW).

John is a director of the corporate trustees of a major corporate foundation, three private ancillary funds and another philanthropic trust. He is a Fellow of the Tax Institute and a member of the Society of Trust & Estate Practitioners. Since 2010 he has been an external advisory member of the Australian Taxation Office’s Public Rulings Panel.

He has been included as a leading or highly recommended individual tax advisor in the following surveys (and earlier editions thereof):

• Chambers Asia Pacific 2011.
• The Chambers Global Guide to the World’s Best Lawyers 2010.
• The Best Lawyers list for Australia 2010.
• The PLC Cross-border Tax on Transactions Handbook, 5th edition 2010.
• The Legal Media Group Expert Guide to the World’s Leading Tax Advisers (in association with International Tax Review), 7th edition 2009.
• The 2009 PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook. • The International Who’s Who of Corporate Tax Lawyers 2009.
• The Asialaw Leading Lawyers 2009.

You can e-mail John at jking@prolegis.com.au