Associate - Corporate Tax

About the team: Advising on the corporate tax aspects of mainstream corporate, banking and commercial transactions as well as providing standalone corporate tax advice (including tax efficient management and employee incentives) for FTSE 100/250, leading financial institutions and private business clients (e.g., in the energy and renewables, private equity and tech sectors).

Based in the Birmingham office and working nationally, you will work closely with the full range of stakeholders nationally and globally. We are a collaborative team of committed tax experts, working together flexibly to give the best possible service and technically flawless but practical tax advice to clients and colleagues. We continue to invest in our people to facilitate profitable growth for the team and the firm; to create opportunities for progression in the team; and to innovate in the way we deliver our services.

About the role: Working within the Corporate, Finance & Tax Group, which comprises over 90 fee earning staff across the firm, advising on a broad range of corporate tax work for major corporate clients (such as Blackstone, ASDA, Meta, Rigby Group, Rothsay Life and BioNTech). The successful candidate will have broad-based experience of providing corporate tax advice in the following areas:

• National and international mergers, acquisitions and disposals – assets and shares
• Strategic tax advice, including pre-sale tax planning and preparation, and transaction structuring
• Group reorganisations and balance sheet engineering
• Management incentives including employee share schemes
• Private funds and other joint venture
• Public markets transactions and IPOs/secondary fund raising

We place emphasis on technical excellence, and on sharing within the team technical tax knowledge and relevant market know-how. We will invest in your development by funding relevant memberships and courses (e.g., CTA/Chartered Institute of Taxation). You will be able to provide technical updates to the team as well as awareness training on tax matters to non-tax colleagues, working as an integral part of our highly regarded national tax practice. This is an excellent opportunity for the right candidate to build towards a legal director and/or eventual partnership case in Birmingham.

About you: We are looking for:

• A proven, demonstrable track record of advising on the tax aspects of corporate transactions including specific tax issues arising in structuring and due diligence.
• Post-qualification experience undertaken within a corporate tax team.
• Proven experience of developing and leading client-facing relationships for tax matters.
• Experience of tax structuring and transactional advice for private funds.
• Experience of private equity work would be advantageous.
• Experience of tax aspects of ECM fund raising and investment structures.
• Experience of providing assistance to less experienced team members and assisting with training initiatives.
• Experience of getting involved or taking responsibility for marketing initiatives including delivering training and briefing notes.

What We Can Offer You: The opportunity to work for a firm which has been recognised as one of the best places to work in the UK and has been ranked by Great Place to Work for 25 consecutive years. Excellent benefits, including:

• A hybrid approach to office and remote working.
• Generous annual leave, with the option to buy up to a week's extra annual leave.
• Free private medical insurance, and the option to add family members.
• A generous pension allowance.
• Life assurance covering four times your annual salary.
• The chance of a three-month sabbatical every five years.
• Maternity, paternity and adoption leave schemes.
• A range of health and wellbeing programmes.
• State of the art offices, in the heart of Birmingham City Centre, with an onsite restaurant.
• Opportunities to flourish in your role through training and personal development.

Many of our people work flexibly in some way. If you would like to explore your own flexible working arrangements with us, we are happy to discuss this during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunities: Gowling WLG is committed both to promoting equality and diversity in the firm and to Equal Opportunities in employment. The firm believes in equality of opportunity regardless of race or racial group (including colour, nationality, ethnicity, and national origins), religion or belief, age, disability, sexual orientation, sex, gender re-assignment and gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy, maternity and paternity. This also includes any incidents of perceptive or associative discrimination and harassment. At Gowling WLG we seek to attract and retain talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds and cultures, to create an exciting and rewarding place to work. Our aim is to fulfil everyone's potential and together to achieve personal and business goals.

Any offers we make will be conditional subject to clearance by the SRA, evidence of eligibility to work in the UK and DBS clearance.