Of Counsel
Gillian is Of Counsel at Stephenson Harwood, with extensive experience advising employers, trustees, and individuals on all aspects of occupational and international pension schemes, as well as private wealth and tax matters.
Language - English
Jurisdiction - England & Wales
Gillian is Of Counsel at Stephenson Harwood, based in London, with a wealth of experience advising on the full range of issues for pension schemes, sponsors, and both UK and overseas pension arrangements. She advises employers and trustees on all aspects of occupational pension schemes, including funding arrangements, liability management exercises, benefit design, corporate transactions, and member complaints. Gillian’s client base ranges from large corporates and master trusts to charities and individuals, including a major SIPP provider. Across her varied practice, Gillian delivers flexible and focused advice tailored to each client’s needs.
Gillian is also a qualified Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP), providing individuals and offshore trustees with specialist advice on structuring and taxation of benefits from non-UK pension schemes. Her cross-border expertise includes advising on residence, taxation, and double tax reliefs, often working closely with clients and their advisers to deliver personal, practical solutions. Gillian’s practice also covers inheritance tax and succession planning, individual pension tax planning, and the UK tax treatment of foreign pension receipts. She is known for her ability to cut through technical detail, offering clear options and solutions that earn her clients’ trust and confidence.
Technical analysis of Pension Scheme Rules
Gillian won this new client by providing thorough and clear advice on the proper interpretation of the Scheme rules in relation to a historic category of members and how early retirement rights applied to them in a closed scheme and the interaction of statutory preservation and revaluation requirements with those rights.
Pensions issues on corporate restructuring
Gillian is assisting a new client in relation to their corporate restricting by foreign owned parent companies, focussing particularly on the notification requirements and potential moral hazard implications of a significant dividends in specie up the group away from the employer group.
Advising large industry-wide scheme
Gillian was a core member of a cross-discipline team analysing the tax treatment of historic interest payments on the late payment of benefits and whether those payments represented authorised payments for pensions tax purposes, and the reporting and disclosure requirements for those payments.
Overseas Insurance Company
Gillian represented this new client she won through a pitch process in disclosing a potential pensions liberation scheme in a book of lifetime annuities it had purchased in a regulatory sale of insurance business.
Overseas pensions: utilising the TRF and FIG
Gillian advises individuals and providers on the payment of benefits from non-UK pension schemes including QROPS, QNUPS, EFRBS and IPPs, including the availability of the new temporary repatriation facility and FIG regimes to bring those funds to the UK tax-efficiently. Gillian recently advised a client with large pension fund in the Isle of Man on taxation of distributions given he accrued benefits in the scheme during extended periods working outside the UK. In another case, she advised a client on drawings from South African pension funds, and utilising the temporary repatriation facility (TRF) to bring those funds to the UK tax efficiently
Individual pension tax planning
Gilian advises on all aspects of UK pensions tax, including on contributions, transfers between arrangements, lifetime withdrawals and the taxation of benefits on death, and the inheritance tax implications for pensions (particularly in light of forthcoming changes).
Expatriate pensions advice
Gillian frequently advises individuals and trustees of offshore schemes on the UK tax implications of pension savings with some form of UK nexus, and the tax implications for the recipient of taking those benefits in their current non-UK jurisdiction, or the jurisdiction they intend to move to from the UK.
Tax non-compliance disclosure exercise
In addition to general pensions and personal tax advice relating to pensions, Gillian has advised on the initial stages of a large non-compliance disclosure, analysing the risks for the client and preparing the HMRC disclosure submission.
Pension liberation arrangement: reporting and engaging with authorties
Gillian advised on a complex pensions liberation structure and the risks for the client of having bought a book of annuity business with liberated structures, analysing their exposure to tax, fines and penalties. Preparing submissions to the Pensions Regulator and HMRC on all related matters.
