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As a specialist tax barrister, James Coleman has conducted over 135 reported tax cases at all levels of the Court system in the past 18 years.

Articles

James Coleman has written extensively on the tax area and currently writes a regular column on tax in the New Zealand Law Journal and in Taxation Today. He is also an author for Brookers SMART tax.

Alesco New Zealand Limited v CIR

This is a tax avoidance case concerning Optional Convertible Notes (OCNs). The key aspect of the case is the proposition that for a deduction to be correctly claimed there needs to be an actual, real economic cost. Here there was in fact no real economic cost associated with the interest deductions Alesco New Zealand was claiming and hence unsurprisingly no deduction was allowedMore…

Spicer v Boulcott Development Group Limited

This case involved a receiver recovering under an indeminity from the purchaser of a property in circumstances where the purchaser had failed to honour its obligations to pay the GST through the offset mechanism agreed. More…

Can the word Artifical be defined and is it merely a question of fact?

In this article James looks at a fresh decision from the UK Privy Counsel - Commissioner of Taxpayer Audit and Assessment v Cigarette Company of Jamaica [2012] UK 9. It is a case where the meaning of the word artificial is defined in an avoidance context. More…

Possession is 9/10ths of the Law.

In this article James looks at the case of Stiassny v CIR [2012] NZCA 93 and in particular looks at whether the receiver could have kept the $127 million if different steps had been taken. More…

Testimonials

"This is a text book I have written on tax avoidance law in this country. It comprehensively deals with the Ben Nevis case and sets out the law as it currently stands. A copy of the text book can be purchased on line from CCH. It is an area of law I am particularly interested in and I would be happy to discuss any problem you may have in this area. "
James Coleman

CLIENT: Michael Chung Law Offices

"We regularly use James Coleman to assist in taxation matters and in dealing with Inland Revenue. We have had very good results."
Michael Chung

CLIENT: Whitianga Waterways Limited
CASE: Multi-million dollar deduction case

"James acted for Whitianga Waterways Limited on a multimillion dollar deduction case which was successfully resolved at the Adjudication stage entirely in our favour."
Tim Brooks Director Finance