What do you do?

I’ve worked in Indirect Tax (VAT, mainly) for over 20 years now – starting out at HMRC and making my way up the ladder through the Big 4 Accountancy firms, In-House and now back to practice at Cooper Parry. What I love is taking the fear factor out of VAT – taking something that’s really complicated, making it make sense to others (especially those with day jobs to be getting on with!) so that you are comfortable its all under control, managing relationships with tax authorities and even turning Indirect Tax into an opportunity at times. It can actually be fun!

Why do you do it?

I remember turning up to my first HMRC interview thinking I would be stopping boats full of illegal substances but leaving the room as a VAT inspector. Following that initial setback I realised there’s a lot more to VAT that meets the eye. It goes to the very heart of business – because it applies in one form or another to any transaction a business makes, it’s crucial that it’s controlled well. What drives me is taking the heat out of it all for businesses, so they can get on with the things they’re best at.

What kind of projects have you been involved in?

Having seen things from all sides – HMRC, practice and in-house, I’ve worked on and seen a lot of things. Going right back to the start at HMRC it was all about helping businesses do better – not punishing them for their mistakes but working with them to make it better.

This has stuck with me throughout my career so far. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the technical question of “I’m doing this, what’s the VAT treatment?”, but nowadays I think there’s so much more to tax than just knowing the answer to a technical question.

So the projects I’ve really enjoyed are helping businesses look at how indirect tax impacts their organisation from end-to-end, looking at how we can get that documented in a way that HMRC (or any other tax authority) would love to see, and then seeing whether we can make it even better – to the extent it can even give you an outright cash or working capital advantage!

And when I haven’t been doing these things, I’ve spent a lot of time working with tax authorities across the world when they raise enquiries and disputes. At the best of times these are often stressful experiences, but I’ve got a huge amount of experience in managing these so if you do find yourself in this situation don’t hesitate to get in touch because I’m sure we’ve seen something similar before!

What’s on top of your bucket list?

Right now? It’s all about the Golf for me. I just want to be better – I think scratch is probably beyond me now, so I’d accept low single figure handicap. As much as it frustrates me after I have a bad round its all about that one shot that keeps me interested – if you know, you know!

Other than that, there’s still so many places in the world I want to see with the family – Japan, an African Safari, the Maldives…. the list goes on.