Jonathan Burt has spent 30 years advising international entrepreneurs and business and wealth owners. His clients typically have a connection with the UK through tax residency, citizenship or domicile, or invest in UK businesses or real estate. His clients invariably have interests in foundations, trusts or companies, often outside the UK, which hold businesses or investments internationally.
He is an expert adviser on UK resident non-domiciled individuals, their assets in and outside the UK and their trust structures. He does a lot of complicated cross-border estate planning for international families who hold assets in different countries. He often advises on people moving countries and the global tax and immigration issues which those people must consider. Jonathan is often sought out by clients and intermediaries for some of the most complex and difficult cross border trust and tax issues. He has built a leading reputation for working out the solution to complex cross-border legal conundra.
- UK tax
- Cross-border tax and succession planning
- Multi-jurisdictional investment structures involving trusts and foundations
- Specialist advice for trustees, beneficiaries and families with international interests
- Tax compliance, investigation and litigation
- Working as part of a team of international advisers on the affairs of a resident non-domiciled family who moved from the USA to the UK. Jonathan advised on the UK tax aspects of the move and on restructuring a trust which held part of the family’s assets.
- Advising a Middle Eastern entrepreneur who settled business assets onto trust structures to enable trustees to control the businesses after his death and manage the long-term devolution of his wealth to members of his family. Jonathan advised on the establishment of a private trust company to manage the assets.
- Advising a Swiss based entrepreneur regarding UK tax residency and domicile to create a cohesive plan leading to his retirement with control of his assets being vested in a board of trustees going forward.
- Advising a bank trust company in relation to exchange of information programmes and tax compliance in the UK. This involved reviewing files in light of the requirements to ensure that the trust company’s system was picking up the relevant information which it had to report.
- Advising the executors of a persons’ estate in relation to the consequences of tax planning schemes into which the deceased had entered many years ago.
Jonathan learned about cross-border succession planning when he worked for Baker McKenzie’s wealth management division between 2001 and 2007. He became a partner there in 2004.
Barclays Bank subsequently headhunted him to become a managing director in the bank’s Wealth Advisory group. This comprised Barclays Wealth’s international tax, trust and insurances businesses. Jonathan worked for Barclays between 2008 and 2012 during which time he travelled extensively in Africa and the Middle East meeting clients of the bank and promoting the bank’s wealth advisory services.
In 2012, Jonathan joined Harcus Sinclair as a partner where he built his legal practice working with a number of wealth individuals and their trustees. He became a partner with Harbottle & Lewis in 2018.
Jonathan is a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) and in 2015 STEP nominated him in their Annual Awards as Trusted Advisor of the Year.
He has been regularly listed in the Citywealth Leaders List and is included as one of Citywealth’s Top 20 Men in Wealth Management.
