Damien Bourke

Damien has over 20 years’ experience dealing with complex tax litigation and for the past 10 years has been exclusively involved in litigating with the various Revenue authorities. Aside from his listing in Best Lawyers in Australia, Damien was named as a leading tax lawyer in the 2017 and 2018 edition of Doyle's Guide.

Damien has particular expertise in tax disputes and is based in the firm’s Brisbane office. A former partner at Ernst and Young law he led the firm's Queensland tax disputes practice. He advises on all aspects of Australian and State revenue disputes as well as complex cross border tax investigations, tax litigation, management of raids by revenue authorities and strategic discussions with tax authorities. More recently Damien has practiced in his own specialised tax disputes and litigation firm.

He is recognised as one of the leading tax advisors and prior to joining with Holding Redlich, the firm (Bourke Legal) was recommended by Doyle’s guide as one of the leading tax litigation firms.

He has recently been involved in successful payroll tax litigation against the Queensland revenue authorities. He is a leading authority on trusts and has had considerable success in both the Federal and High court in this area.

Damien is a qualified solicitor and advocate and is a member of the Tax Institute. He is a member of the Queensland Law Society Revenue Committee (which advises the Society on all aspects of State Revenue taxes including stamp duty and payroll) as well as being on the Law Council’s Business Tax law committee – which advises the national body on all aspects of Federal Tax law.

His focus over more recent times has been around negotiated settlements of Tax disputes and particular strategies which bring the ATO to the settlement table at an early stage of proceedings. He has been the principal negotiator in both income tax and GST as well as legal professional privilege disputes for both Small to Medium Enterprises as well as for larger listed corporations.

He has advised on a large range of tax and trust law issue, including the abuse of administrative powers and their review by the Federal Court – a jurisdiction where he has also appeared for taxpayers in both Part IVC disputes and other administrative controversies. He has advised in malicious prosecution proceedings as well as misfeasance in public office by taxation officers (which he also prosecuted).