John Pickering

John practices in commercial and taxation law, advising clients on tax planning relating to income tax, goods and services tax (GST), PRRT, excise duty and stamp duty. He advises clients in tax audit negotiations and has appeared as counsel in tax litigation before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the State Administrative Tribunal, the Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Australia.

John has more than four decades of experience in taxation matters. He joined Freehills in 1988 and became a partner in 1994 until resigning in 2008. John has been consulting to HSF/ Freehills since 2008. Prior to that he was in charge of the Appeals Branch of the Australian Taxation Office in Perth. For six years, he was the convener of the Taxation Practitioner’s Committee of the Law Society of Western Australia, and for 12 years was a member and Chair of the Tax Agents Board of Western Australia.

He has delivered a variety of papers on revenue laws to various forums.

John holds a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) from the Western Australian Institute of Technology, a Bachelor of Jurisprudence, a Bachelor of Laws and a Master of Laws from the University of Western Australia.

Experience

He has;

• advised clients on tax planning related to GST, income tax, PRRT, stamp duty, excise duty and other miscellaneous taxes;



• advised Not for profits on taxation and charity law;



• advised large corporations - including the North West Shelf Joint Venturers, state trading bodies and Co-operative Bulk Handling Limited on a variety of taxation issues;



• advised corporate and individual clients in relation to tax audits and negotiations with the revenue authorities; and



• instructed counsel and appeared as counsel in tax litigation before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, the SAT, the Supreme Court and the Federal Court of Australia