Lesley Kim

About Lesley Kim

Lesley Kim is a tax partner with Gowling WLG in Toronto, handling both domestic and cross-border files. Outbound work sits at the centre of the practice: structuring transactions that involve foreign affiliates and non-resident trusts. Kim's clients are public and private companies in fields as different as mining, oil and gas, manufacturing, technology, and racing and gaming.

A lot of the work is deal-driven. Kim structures reorganizations and spin-offs, plans the tax side of M&A, and advises on equity and debt financings (flow-through shares included) and on investments by private equity. There's a planning and controversy side to the practice too, covering estate planning and the resolution of tax disputes.

Kim's first call was to the Alberta bar in 2009, followed by Ontario in 2012 and Saskatchewan in 2018. Before turning entirely to tax, Kim was a corporate and securities associate at another national firm and spent a secondment at the Alberta Securities Commission. That corporate and securities grounding is what Kim draws on to see how tax choices play into a company's wider structure and strategy. Kim had earlier been a partner at Gowling WLG and has since rejoined the firm.

Writing and speaking about income tax changes is a regular part of Kim's year, with co-authored pieces in Canadian Tax Focus, Perspectives on Tax Law & Policy and Tax Notes International, and a talk on tax on split income at the Canadian Tax Foundation's Prairie Provinces Tax Conference. Kim is recognized in The Best Lawyers in Canada 2027 for Tax Law.