Michael Shaw Senior Counsel

Senior Counsel
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Michael specialises in tax and succession planning advice for international individuals and families.

His clients include families, entrepreneurs, private equity executives, family offices and trustees. Almost all his work has a complex tax background and a strong cross-border element.

He has extensive experience advising international clients coming to the UK for the first time on pre-arrival planning and existing UK residents on navigating the UK’s complex tax rules – as well as clients elsewhere looking to invest in the UK or with only minimal links to the UK.  

He advises on establishing and running asset holding structures and family offices. He often works in tandem with advisers elsewhere to balance competing tax and practical demands in various jurisdictions.

Michael is a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.

Michael sits on the steering group for our Pride staff network, a forum for networking and peer support between LGBT+ staff and allies.

Expertise

Recent work

International succession planning

Working with German and US counsel on an individual’s complex worldwide estate planning to defer exposure to UK inheritance tax and safeguard succession to family company shares, including an analysis of how UK taxes apply to a range of civil law concepts.

International structuring

Working alongside corporate tax colleagues to advise on structuring for a new European fund with a key investor and carried interest partner who is likely to become deemed domiciled during the life of the fund.

HMRC

Advising a UK resident non-domiciliary subject to a wide ranging HMRC enquiry into his domicile, taking in three generations of an internationally mobile family.

Advice to private bank

Advising a renowned private bank on the UK tax implications of historical investments in complex products in a UK resident non-domiciliary’s portfolio, together with remittance issues arising from errors in account operation.

Pre-arrival planning

Advising a family coming to the UK on pre-residence tax planning, establishing and restructuring offshore asset holding entities, setting up a UK family office to unite trusted employees around the globe and investing significant new capital.

International structuring

Advising a multinational family on modernising unusual historical holding structures and improving family governance.

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In depth

Finance Bill 2017: Avoidance measures

Michael Shaw 07 Dec 2016
This update looks at how the Finance Bill 2017 proposes to implement two of the anti-avoidance measures on which the government has recently consulted.
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