KHQ Lawyers

Tax & Structuring and Wills & Estates

Special Counsel

Laura is a tax and estates lawyer with a specialised practice in the tax issues arising in succession planning and estate administration. Laura’s advice is known for being clear, practical and commercially focused. She advises a broad range of clients, including high‑net‑worth family groups, private clients and corporate stakeholders, with her work sitting at the intersection of tax law, trust law and succession planning.

Laura brings strong technical experience across tax and estate administration, including:

• Business and family succession planning: Advising family groups on planned transitions of ownership and control during, including the design and implementation of succession strategies using tailored shareholder and unitholder agreements, bespoke constitutions, and custom trust deeds.

• Estate tax and administration: Advising executors, trustees and beneficiaries on tax and duty issues arising on death and during estate administration, including deceased estate income tax, CGT consequences, life estates, and rights to reside, deeds of family arrangement and transfer duty implications.

• Transaction‑driven business structuring (M&A and exits): Advising on restructures, disposals, and capital events, including pre‑sale simplification of complex groups, CGT rollovers, and state tax considerations.

• Strategic restructures for business growth and risk management: Advising on proactive restructures to support business expansion, scalability, and asset protection, including advice on CGT rollovers, small business CGT concessions, and trust structuring.

• Trust law advisory and drafting: Advising on complex trust law issues including trustee and appointor roles, beneficiary rights, vesting issues, variations and exclusions, foreign beneficiary implications, and the taxation of trusts.

• Tax disputes, audits and revenue authority engagement: End‑to‑end management of disputes and audits arising from ATO and state revenue authority reviews, including matters under the ATO’s Next 5,000 program. Laura’s prior role with the State Revenue Office of Victoria provides valuable insight into revenue authority processes and approaches to compliance.

• Taxation of crypto assets and emerging technologies: Advising on the taxation of crypto assets, including NFTs and other blockchain‑based assets.

Laura is a regular speaker on tax and estate tax matters, presenting to accountants, lawyers and private client advisers on deceased estates, succession planning, trust law, and emerging risk areas in tax and succession planning.

Laura holds degrees in Law (Honours) and Business, as well as a postgraduate qualification in law (awarded with merit). She is an active member of The Tax Institute and was elected to the Victorian State Council in 2021.