Overview
Lesley Kim practises in the areas of domestic and cross-border taxation, tax law with a focus on transactional matters, including complex cross-border reorganizations, plans of arrangements, public company spin-offs, public and private equity and debt financings, including flow-through share financings and domestic and crossborder private equity investments. She also has experience with estate planning and tax dispute resolution. Lesley is highly involved in the planning, structuring and implementation of many tax driven transactions and corporate reorganizations, and has recently been engaged in a number of innovative domestic and cross-border M&A transactions structured to accommodate the changing marketplace.
Lesley’s tax practice is national and she serves public and private clients in provinces across Canada. She has worked with clients engaged in a wide variety of industries, including, technology, manufacturing and distributing, oil and gas and mining.
She has written numerous articles regarding income tax developments and has spoken at a number of
conferences on Canadian and international taxation matters.
Lesley was previously a tax partner in the Calgary office an international law firm and a tax associate in the Toronto offices of a major international law firm another large national law firm. Prior to focusing exclusively on her tax practice, Lesley was a corporate and securities associate with a national law firm and she completed a secondment with the Alberta Securities Commission. Her previous experience informs and complements her tax practice and she has a deep understanding of the complexities involved in various corporate and securities transactions.
Notable matters
- Structuring and advising on the sale of a large public company for CA500 million, and spin-off of assets to a new publicly listed issuer.
- Structuring and advising on a complex, cross-border transaction involving the spin-off of assets valued at over CAD150 million in multiple foreign jurisdictions.
- Structuring and advising on the sale of over USD500 million of cross-border assets.
- Tax counsel for large technology company on its sale to a major international technology company.
- Canadian tax counsel for a large multi-national public e-commerce company establishing Canadian operations.
- Tax counsel for a large multi-national public food manufacturer on its acquisition of a food division from a multi-national public consumer goods company for USD4.2 billion.
- Tax counsel for the commercialization of a federal government agency.
- Tax counsel for a large public medical and pharmaceutical record-keeping company on its sale to a public health care products company for USD12.8 billion.
- Tax counsel on numerous public company financings, plans of arrangements, including spin-offs and other reorganizations.
Thought leadership
- Tax Times, Issue No. 10 – May 27, 2022, “New Mandatory Disclosure Rules for Reportable and Notifiable Transactions”
- Co-author "Capital Gains Taxation in Canada: History and Potential Reforms" (2021) 2:3 Perspectives on Tax Law & Policy
- Co-author, "Section 160: 2020 Highlights" (2021) 11:1 Canadian Tax Focus, 12
- Co-author, "Canada's Efforts to Blunt the Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic", Tax Notes International, Volume 98, Number 3, April 20, 2020
- Co-speaker, The Canadian Tax Foundation's Prairie Provinces Tax Conference, May 2019 – Planning in the Brave New World of TOSI
- Co-author, "Planning in the Brave New World of Tax on Split Income," 2019 Prairie Provinces Tax Conference, (Toronto: Canadian Tax Foundation, 2019), 9: 1-85
- Co-speaker, Bloomberg BNA 2nd Annual International Tax Conference: Canada and Beyond – A Roadmap to International Tax Reporting Obligations, August 31, 2016
Professional memberships
- Law Society of Alberta
- Law Society of Ontario
- Law Society of Saskatchewan (inactive)
- Canadian Tax Foundation
Bar admissions & education
- Saskatchewan, 2018
- Ontario, 2012
- Alberta, 2009
- LL.M., University of Toronto, 2008
- LL.B., University of Saskatchewan, 2007
