My team specialises in corporate transactions, so my desk has a mix of demergers, management buy-outs, sales to employee ownership trusts and the like. A major part of my role is nurturing the talent within the team, so I work with individual team members on the wider skill sets, such as project management, communication skills and helping them become well-rounded tax advisers.
One area of intense frustration is the way the policy making process works, or rather, doesn’t work. A lot of tax policy appears to be based on decisions that have already been made, regardless of any consultation. A lot of policy also seems to be based on a lack of understanding of commercial reality, perhaps because there is so little crossover in career paths between the civil service and the commercial world.
When legislation is published, there is a huge resistance to making changes, even when it is abundantly clear that the legislation is either defective in itself or doesn’t properly reflect the stated policy. There is a reluctance from HMRC/HMT to ‘bother’ ministers with minor changes to draft legislation make it work properly, with HMRC preferring to rely on guidance to soften the impact. This is particularly concerning given the Court of Appeal judgment in Bluecrest Capital Management [2025] EWCA Civ 23, where the court said that its decision had to be based on its interpretation of the legislation and not on the interpretation that HMRC had published in their manuals!
If I am very personally honest, I would say that I wish I had understood all those years ago the fact that I do not know everything!
Perhaps more practically, when dealing with owner-managed businesses the decisions of the business owners are often rooted in their emotional requirements, as much as practical requirements or a desire to pay the minimum amount of tax. It isn’t just about passing businesses down to the next generation of the family; it can also be about an emotional attachment to the business they built up or to the place where they started the business. In one case, they were desperate not to lose control of a company founded by their great grandfather over 100 years earlier! As tax advisers, it’s important that we learn to stand back and understand what the client really wants before applying our tax knowledge to those requirements.
I may be one of the first people to be asked to do a second minute with Tax Journal! The first time was in November 2011 when this feature was new to the journal and I was relatively new to running my own business.
One thing that has changed since then is that I have developed a passion for scuba diving, which I first tried 10 years ago. I am now a PADI Master Scuba Diver and qualified to Tec 50 level, which means I’m allowed to dive to over 50m using different gas mixes to decompress on the way back to the surface. It’s been a busy year professionally, and I haven’t been diving since April 2024 but I am very excited that I have just booked a holiday to go diving this April.
