Montserrat Turrado

I am a partner and head of Bird & Bird's Tax department in the Madrid office.

I'm a lawyer with strong transactional and dispute resolution expertise. With over 30 years' experience within the tax environment, I have wide-ranging experience providing tax advisory services to Spanish entities and multinational groups, from the financial & insurance industry, energy industry, real estate area, pharma field and others.

By utilising my knowledge of the Spanish market, regulatory framework of some of my clients and maintaining regular contact with regulators and the tax authorities, I've built a very pragmatic practice with a clear understanding of clients' tax requirements and needs.

Assisting private clients to structure their wealth in a tax efficient manner to hold it and further pass it through new family generations or to transfer on-going businesses to new investors is also one of the areas where our department grew significantly along the last years.

I coordinate and lead specialist teams on projects relating to direct and indirect taxation, tax accounting and tax controversy.

I write regularly on tax issues and lecture and lead seminars for organisations including the ICADE, IEB and Chamber of Commerce of Madrid.

I speak fluent Spanish and English.

• Participating in transactions involving corporate vehicles ('share deal') and business assets/activities ('asset deal'), assisting in the design of the tax structure thereof, reviewing the clauses and tax implications of the agreements reached for this purpose and carrying out the tax due diligence review of the entities/assets being transferred.
• Reorganisation operations of national or international business groups, analysing each and every one of their tax implications at the date of their conclusion and in subsequent years, for the purposes of direct and indirect taxation, for both entities taking part in the transactions and for their partners (individuals and legal entities, residents in Spain and non-residents).
• Assisting financial institutions (regulated and non-regulated, being credit/banking entities and/or securities entities) and insurance companies in identifying the main tax issues arising from their activities, with particular emphasis on those arising from the specific regulatory framework (for accounting and other purposes) under which they operate and VAT issues.
• Advising entities devoted to the management and exploitation of intellectual property rights.
• Specific analysis of the tax implications of real estate transactions, with special attention to indirect taxation (i.e. VAT vs. Transfer Tax). Comparative study of the special regimes applicable to the real estate sector (i.e. SOCIMIS, housing rental companies, etc.) and assistance in their application and monitoring.
• Assisting entities from the energy sector, analysing various tax aspects of their M&A operations (greenfield, brownfield, RTB projects, etc.), as well as the specific taxation applicable to their sector (i.e. special taxes).
• Analysis of certain tax incentives applicable to certain business activities, such as transfer of use of certain intangible assets ('Patent Box'), film productions, etc.
• Tax advice to individuals and family groups in the process of structuring their personal or business assets and, where appropriate, inter-family generational transfer or to third party investors.
• Assisting in the design and implementation of remuneration plans or incentives for employees and collaborators, such as Stock Plans and Phantom Shares. Analysis of the tax treatment applicable to certain remuneration packages (i.e. remuneration for travel abroad, pension plans, meal vouchers, medical insurance, transport vouchers) and the obligations for withholding IRPF/IS applicable to them.
• Analysis of the tax implications for the employee and employer of teleworking (i.e. tax residence issues, risk of permanent establishment, withholding obligations of the employer in a foreign country, etc.).
• Assisting in tax audit procedures and tax litigation.