Clare Smith

Clare is senior counsel in the Tax and Incentives group, specialising in corporate tax. She advises on a wide range of finance, corporate and real estate tax matters. 

Clare is an experienced corporate tax lawyer who has substantial and diverse experience of tax matters gained both within law and accounting practices. Her practice focuses on UK taxation, including the interaction of UK and foreign taxes.  Clare handles all areas of corporate taxation, both structural and transactional, and in addition, Clare advises upon indirect tax matters.

With 25 years’ tax experience, Clare has developed particular expertise in the following industry sectors:

• Aerospace & defence/Automotive & mobility – advising on significant divestures and joint ventures.
• Banking & finance – advising on the taxation aspects of UK securitization vehicles for use by the banking and automotive industries.
• Consumer & retail/Manufacturing & industrials– reviewing large industrial corporate structures to ensure the group holding structure is tax efficient and satisfies UK tax legislation including carrying out controlled foreign company reviews and advising on significant divestures and tax efficient exits.
• Oil/energy - advising on significant divestures and joint ventures.
• Real estate – advising on and implementing tax efficient holding structures for commercial real estate and advising  on significant M&A transactions. 

Clare has primarily worked from London, but much of her transactional experience is cross-border/global in nature.