Jo Dugdale

Expertise

Jo is a member of the tax team advising on all areas of business tax.

Jo has particular expertise in property taxes including VAT and SDLT. She regularly advises national housing developers in relation to their acquisitions of property for development including SDLT reliefs and the ability to defer SDLT. Jo also advises in relation to LTT (the Welsh equivalent to SDLT) and potential SDLT/LTT cross-border transactions. She has experience running an appeal to the first-tier of the Tax Tribunal on the availability of relief from the 15% rate of SDLT and has instructed and attended conferences with leading tax counsel including in relation to land pooling trusts. Jo has also advised non-statutory property investment funds on the tax consequences of their transactions, including reporting on the release of rights of light and property transfers between sub-funds and transfers of going concerns.

Jo acts for entrepreneurs, financial institutions and private equity houses whether on the buy- or sell-side and regularly advises clients on warranty and indemnity insurance policies backing M&A deals. She frequently negotiates and drafts the tax provisions for corporate transactions, including share purchase tax covenants and business purchase agreements. Jo advises on the tax consequences of corporate transactions, including acquisitions, disposals, restructurings and investments, and is experienced in dealing with the recovery of VAT on share purchase acquisition costs by newco buyers. She also advises on the implementation of employee incentive share schemes and employment taxes. 

In addition, Jo regularly delivers tax training sessions to a range of audiences with varying experience levels.

Experience

1. Acting on the tax aspects of a £130m disposal of a corporate group to a listed entity.
2. Acting on the tax aspects of a £85m acquisition of an international corporate group. 
3. Assisting on the tax implications and structuring of a land pooling trust on a major housing development, including VAT, capital gains tax, corporation tax and SDLT issues.
4. Successfully appealing against HMRC’s imposition of over £1m of VAT.