PEOPLE AND FIRMS

Please email the editor Paul Stainforth to tax promotions, senior appointments firm news. (Dates shown are when entries are added, not necessarily the date of the move.)

9 December 2024

25 November 2024

• Gravita appoints Fiona Cross as transfer pricing partner. Cross, formerly of Finerva, specialises in permanent establishments, withholding taxes, transfer pricing and double taxes, including EIS, SEIS, EMI, and EOT schemes.
• Alvarez & Marsal Tax appoints two managing directors: Jonathan Balcombe will lead portfolio tax services, and Alexander Marcham will head up the firm’s UK-based family office service. They join from Evelyn Partners and Edinv respectively.
• KPMG Scotland promotes Sandra Gilchrist, its research and development partner, as head of the tax team.
• Clive Owen LLP appoints Angela Mikola as a tax director based in the York office. Mikola, who joins from Garbutt + Elliott, specialises in corporate tax.
• PKF Smith Cooper appoints James Barry as a personal tax manager in the Derby office. Barry joins from Evelyn Partners.
• Saffery elects Nigel Burke as its new chairman. Burke specialises in providing financial, accounting, audit, and taxation advice to businesses in the media and entertainment sector.

18 November 2024

• Moore Kingston Smith promotes Daniel Lever to partner in the corporate audit team; Amanda Harris and Sam Edwards as directors in the nonprofit team; Nav Johal, Geoff Nichols and Kevin Veitch as directors in general practice, Vida McShane as a director in the legal team and Charlie Killingbeck as a director in corporate finance. Nick Thompson is appointed Head of Corporate Finance, Marc Fecher is Chair of Corporate Finance, and Karen Wardell is appointed Head of Technical.
• Kreston Reeves appoints Nick Dawe as director in the VAT and indirect tax team. Dawe, formerly of KPMG, specialises in land and property businesses, financial services, retail, not-for-profit, energy and public sector institutions.
• Claritas Tax appoints Tom Prescott as head of transfer pricing and associate partner, based in the Birmingham office. Prescott joins from KPMG.
• HMRC is recruiting independent advisers to join three Board committees. These roles are Independent Advisor, Customer Service Committee, Independent Advisor, Professional Standards Committee and Independent Advisor, Closing the Tax Gap Committee. All roles are paid, with an estimated time commitment between 4-6 days per annum. The closing date for applications is 24 November.

11 November 2024

• James Wild, Conservative MP for North West Norfolk, is appointed Shadow Exchequer Secretary.
• Squire Patton Boggs appoints André Vermeulen as director to establish its Tax Strategy & Benefits Practice in Ireland. Vermeulen joins from Eversheds Sutherland.
• Forvis Mazars appoints Emma Mason as a corporate tax partner. Mason joins from RSM.
• Burness Paull promotes Christine Yuill and Nicola Williams to partner in its corporate tax and share incentives team, and appoints Chubbe Anucha as a tax solicitor who joins from CMS Scotland.
• PKF Smith Cooper has rebranded as part of a network-wide initiative by PKF Global.

4 November 2024

• Mel Stride is appointed shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
• Mercer & Hole appoints Jo Bateson as private client partner. Bateson returns to the firm after several years with KPMG.
• Galloways Accounting appoints Colin Laidlaw as VAT partner. Laidlaw joins from Kreston Reeves.
• BDO promotes Parul Anand to partner specialising in VAT for the not for profit sector, Alistair Culverwell to partner in Tax Dispute Resolution, Nuala McLaughlin to transaction tax partner, Nick Millward to partner in corporate and M&A – transaction tax, Stuart Strong to tax partner in the Global Employer Services team, Chris Williams to tax partner, advising privately owned businesses, and Christopher Mann to tax partner in the private client team.
• Ropes & Gray promotes Benjamin Wonnacott to Counsel. Wonnacott specialises in UK taxation of corporate transactions, financial instruments, real estate transactions and fund investment structures as well as international taxation matters.
• Shell promotes Andrew Enever to VP Tax Policy and Practice.
• UHY Hacker Young simplifies its brand name to UHY.

30 October 2024

• Charles Russell Speechlys appoints James Stewart as a partner in the firm’s corporate tax & incentives group. Stewart joins from Sheridans.
• Laura Duggan, formerly of Azets, joins business advisory firm Sedulo as its head of corporate tax.
• Evelyn Partners acquires ReSolve Advisory, a provider of restructuring and business advisory services based in Charing Cross, London.

21 October 2024

• Paul Johnson steps down as the Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies in summer 2025 to become Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford.
• Blick Rothenberg appoints Sarah Stenton as Director of Tax Investigations, joining from HMRC’s Fraud Investigations Service; and David Livitt and James Wheeler as Global Mobility Partners, who join from Livitt & Associates and Azets respectively.
• Pump Court Tax Chambers welcomes Arthur Wong as a member of Chambers. Wong specialises in personal tax, corporate tax, VAT, stamp taxes, customs duties and international tax.
• MHA appoints Peter Carville as a partner to lead its financial services tax team. Carville joins from KPMG. 
• RBK Chartered Accountants promotes Sinéad McMahon to associate tax partner. McMahon specialises in incorporation, reorganisations, due diligence, VAT and succession planning.
• Knight Frank appoints Rebecca McKerral as VAT manager, who joins from Pure Search recruitment.
• N Brown Group promotes Gareth Littlewood to Head of Tax and Shared Services. 

14 October 2024

• Mike Bracken and Bill Dodwell join HMRC Board as non-executive directors. Bracken is a digital transformation expert and founder and executive director of the UK Government Digital Service and the UK’s first Government Chief Data Officer and will chair the board’s Modernisation and Reform Committee. Dodwell is a tax specialist and former Tax Director of the Office of Tax Simplification and will chair the board’s Closing the Tax Gap Committee.
• Alvarez & Marsal Tax, an affiliate of Alvarez & Marsal, launches its tax practice in Spain. Ángel Calleja will lead the Spain practice, specialising in complex M&A deals and restructuring transactions. Borja Escrivá de Romaní joins as the global transaction tax lead, specialising in domestic and cross-border M&A transactions and corporate and financial restructuring for multinationals. They join from White & Case and Deloitte respectively.
• Grant Thornton UK appoints Nick Warth and Joe Groenen as partners in the firm’s corporate and multinational tax practice. Warth specialises in transfer pricing, and Groenen’s specialism includes corporate entity reorganisation and cross border tax issues. They both join from KPMG.
• Bird & Bird appoints Jesse Dalton as partner. Dalton, formerly of DLA Piper, advises on corporate tax matters, with a particular focus on M&A and finance transactions, intra-group reorganisations and structuring of commercial agreements.
• Blick Rothenberg promotes John Bull as head of private client and appoints Alex Foster, Travis Lee and Kelly Greig as private client partners. Foster, Lee and Greig join from RSM, KPMG China and Steele Raymond solicitors respectively.
• Evelyn Partners appoints Vanessa Lee to partner in its private client tax team based in Leeds. Lee joins from Danaus Consulting.
• Mercer & Hole promotes Martin Coulson and Mark Baxter to partners in the corporate and business tax team. 
• MHA appoints Peter Carville as a partner to lead its financial services tax team. Carville, formerly of KPMG, specialises in profit and capital attribution, bank taxes, withholding tax, SDRT, securitisations and treasury tax matters.
• Rawlinson & Hunter promotes Lisa Festerling to partner specialising in US/UK tax for private clients, with a particular focus on cross-border trust and estate planning.
• PKF Smith Cooper appoints Nick Skidmore as corporate tax manager in its West Midlands Transactions Tax team. Skidmore joins from Bache Brown & Co.

8 October 2024

• Jim Harra is retiring as First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive to HMRC next Spring. Applications for his replacement are now open on gov.uk and close 22 October.
• Eversheds Sutherland appoints Robert Waterson as partner who will lead the firm’s UK tax disputes team. Waterson, formerly of RPC, specialises in cross-border tax disputes, regulatory investigations and public law, advising on all aspects of corporate tax, including group association and group litigation matters.
• Farrer & Co appoints Abigail Nott as senior counsel and Jonathon Goldstone as associate in their private client practice. Nott specialises in tax, trust and estate planning for UK and international individuals; and Goldstone, who joins on 21 October, advises clients with their estate planning, international trust structures, and UK tax residence and domicile. Both join from McDermott Will & Emery.
• McDermott Will & Emery appoints Candice Nichol as tax partner. Nichol, formerly of KPMG, specialises in structuring international transactions across all asset classes, with a particular focus on cross-border deals and fund and balance sheet structuring, including contentious tax matters.
• Kirkland & Ellis promotes 25 lawyers in its London office to partner, including tax experts Michael Akpomiemie and Kunal Nathwani. 
• RSM UK promotes Jack Bentham, Faiz Maljee, Luke Cousins, Beth Barker, Jake Hodgson, as corporate tax directors; Kaila Englesman as corporate tax director specialising in transfer pricing; George Carter as private client services director; and Anna Haworth and Pav Srai, as directors specialising in tax – ESG.

30 September 2024

• Saffery appoints Zoe Thomas and Jonathan Hornby as partners in its London-based team. Thomas, formerly of Evelyn Partners, specialises in tax compliance and reporting, including providing due diligence and tax structuring advice on transactions. Hornby, formerly of Alvarez and Marsal, specialises in corporate taxation, with a focus on international structuring, tax efficient financing, acquisitions and disposals. 
• Moore Kingston Smith appoints Richard Blakeley and Thomas Dalby as partners. Blakely, of PJB Capital Allowances & Depreciation Consultants, will lead the firm’s capital allowances specialism. Dalby is a barrister who specialises in employee share schemes and employee reward, including EMI and CSOP and bespoke arrangements, and joins from Cooper Parry.
• Johnston Carmichael appoints Tom Harrison as senior manager in its global mobility tax team. Harrison joins from BDO. 

23 September 2024

• Exchequer Secretary for the Treasury James Murray is appointed chair of the HMRC Board.
• Meg Hillier has been elected unopposed for the chair of the House of Commons’ Treasury Committee.
• Following the dissolution of 9 Stone Buildings, former member and tax expert Graham Callard now practises from Tanfield Chambers. Callard is a tax lawyer with more than 40 years of experience, and he focusses on both direct and indirect taxes. 
• Barrister Jeremy Woolf (Pump Court Tax Chambers) is appointed Chair of the Fiscal Committee of CFE Tax Advisers Europe.
• Forvis Mazars promotes Jim McDevitt to tax partner within the corporate team of the London office, and Adam Cooper, who will lead the tax valuation practice in Manchester.
• Gateley Legal appoints Adam West as partner in its private client team in Manchester. West joins from Knights.
• Weightmans appoints Michele Wightman as partner in its national private wealth team. Wightman joins from Wilkin Chapman.
• Knights appoints Tom Evans as partner in its private client team in Birmingham, joining from mfg Solicitors.
• PKF Smith Cooper appoints Oliver MacPhee as new private client manager to tax team, joining from Cooper Parry.

16 September 2024

• Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservative MP for North Cotswolds, is elected Chair of the Public Accounts Committee for the 2024 parliament, beating other candidates David Davis and John Glen. Clifton-Brown is a former deputy chair of the PAC.
• Latham & Watkins appoints Simon Skinner as senior tax partner. Skinner specialises in corporate tax, including the tax aspects of corporate finance and private equity transactions, M&As, demergers, joint ventures, restructurings and debt and equity capital markets transactions. He joins from Travers Smith.
• Wilson Sonsini appoints Emma Game as a tax partner in its London office. Game, formerly of Slaughter and May, specialises in corporate and financing transactions, including M&A, joint ventures, demergers and IPOs.
• DSG Chartered Accountants, the largest independent advisory firm in Liverpool, has completed a management buyout, to remain autonomous at a time when many firms are opting for acquisitions or private equity consolidations. The firm will be led by tax partner Mark Kearsley and corporate partner Laura Leslie.
• Evelyn Partners appoints Gary Fenemore as a tax director based in Manchester. Fenemore joins from Alvarez & Marsal.
• Neil Lancaster joins Wilson Wright City of London office as private client tax partner. Lancaster joins from Blick Rothenberg and has 20 years' experience as private client tax adviser.
• Employment tax specialist Patrick Crookes is appointed partner at UHY Hacker Young (Manchester). He joins from Mazars.
• Simon Gibb joins the private wealth team as partner at Trowers & Hamlins. He joins from McDermott Will & Emery.
• VAT Advisory Services Ltd appoints Helen Carey, formerly of Constable VAT Consultancy, as a VAT consultant.
• Banking Circle Group appoints Jens Svolgaard, former in-house tax professional at Bolt, as its Head of Group Tax. 

9 September 2024

• Commercial and tax junior Emile Simpson, formerly of Pump Court Tax Chambers, joins 4 New Square Chambers.
• BDO appoints Simon Wood, formerly of HMRC, as a transfer pricing partner.
• Andy McLean leaves consulting and engineering firm Wood to join ‘cube storage pioneers’ AutoStore as SVP of Tax and Treasury.
• RSM UK appoints Caroline Le Jeune as private client tax partner, based in London. Le Jeune was previously head of private client tax at Blick Rothenberg.
• AMS Group set ups a specialist indirect tax and VAT team led by Tajinder Bhalla, Stephen Fennell and Charmaine Richards.  Bhalla joins as tax partner in its Canary Wharf office, formerly of HW Fisher. Fennell joins as a VAT partner based in Leeds, after running his own consultancy. Richards also joins the Leeds office as a VAT manager after 15 years with HMRC.

4 September 2024

• Azets acquires Scottish accountancy and wealth management firm Milne Craig.
• Evelyn Partners appoints Jennifer Tragner as a partner in its R&D tax team in the Bristol office. Tragner joins from ForrestBrown.

27 August 2024

• Evelyn Partners acquires Haines Watts’ Leeds, Manchester and Newcastle offices, bringing five partners, nine directors, and over 150 colleagues. The deal represents the sixth acquisition for Evelyn Partners’ Professional Services business since the start of 2023.
• Azets promotes Alan Glen, Andrew Fitton, Clair Williams, Claire Smailes, Miya King and Vanessa Clark to tax partner. Glen is a VAT specialist, Fitton specialises in tax reporting and compliance, Williams specialises in employment tax, Smailes specialism includes compliance, while King and Clark specialise in private client.
• Midlands based firm PKF Smith Cooper appoints Adam Zaman (formerly Shorts) as senior manager and Matt Doherty (formerly PwC) as manager to the firm’s corporate tax division.
• Johnston Carmichael appoints Margaret Heggie as tax senior manager in its private client tax team, joining from Turcan Connell.

30 July 2024

• EY appoints Fabrizio Lolliri as a partner in its UK transfer pricing team. Lolliri joins from Alvarez & Marsal in New York.
• Stephenson Harwood appoints Elizabeth Nicholas as a managing associate in the private wealth team. Nicholas, formerly of Penningtons Manches Cooper, specialises in UK tax and estate planning.
• Armstrong Watson appoints Nicole Hilton as a tax director in corporate tax, joining from Mazars. Mel Harrison is promoted to senior tax manager and Janine Levine to tax director and Becky Fraser to senior private client tax manager. 

22 July 2024

• Taxand announces that six new top tier member firms will be joining its global membership: Demarest Advogados in Brazil, Al Tamimi & Company in the Emirates, Maisto e Associati in Italy, Centrum Turkey, Covington & Burling LLP and Leo Berwick in the U.S.
• Blick Rothenberg promotes Annie Hughes and Lisa Gray to partner and Oliver Burton to director in US/UK private client, specialising in providing tax advice to internationally mobile Americans and individuals looking to move to the US.
• Edwin Coe appoints Morag Ofili as a tax partner. Ofili, formerly of from Harbottle & Lewis, is a barrister specialising in private client litigation and contentious tax services ranging from tribunal litigation and cross-border tax investigations, to trust and estate disputes, fraud, judicial review and professional negligence claims.
• Claritas Tax appoints private client specialists Amy Burrows, formerly of Robertson Craig, as tax manager in its Glasgow office and Chloe Lee, formerly of Grant Thornton, as tax manager in its Leeds office.
• PwC appoints Kiret Singh to partner at PwC’s Deals Tax Team. Singh, formerly of Grant Thornton, specialises in UK and international direct and indirect tax matters, particularly in relation to cross-border financing transactions.

15 July 2024

• Grant Thornton appoints Jo-Anne Allen, Heather Smallwood as global mobility tax partners and Ian Rowland as innovation tax partner. Allen, formerly of Vialto Partners, specialises in supporting mid-market companies outside the FTSE 100. Smallwood and Rowland, who specialise in the energy sector and R&D respectively, are promotions. The other new tax partners appointed in the first half of 2024 include: Jess Fountain, private capital tax; Matt Pannell, UK/US private client tax; Mandipa Soni, corporate tax and Alex Miller, indirect tax.
• BDO promotes Adam Frais as the firm’s new head of tax, effective from 1 October 2024. Frais will sit on the firm’s new Leadership Team and will also chair the firm’s Tax Executive Committee.
• Blick Rothenberg promotes Sarah Wilson-Nolan to director in the corporate tax department.
• RPC promotes Jasprit Singh to senior associate. Singh specialises in tax dispute resolution.
• Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) Tax Board appoints Kimberley Thomson, partner and head of tax at Henderson Loggie.

8 July 2024

• Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP is appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Darren Jones as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Lord Livermore as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Livermore has previous experience working at McKinsey & Company, Teneo Blue Rubicon and Saatchi & Saatchi. Prior to working in business, he served in government for ten years, in the Treasury as Chief Strategy Adviser to the Chancellor, and then as Director of Strategy to the Prime Minister. He is a member of the House of Lords, a former Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics, and a former member of the Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee.
• Markel Tax promotes Lyn Comerford as divisional director – tax, responsible for fee protection insurance and tax consultancy service of contractor solutions, incentives and reliefs, and tax investigations.
• haysmacintyre appoints Majid Hussain as a partner and its new head of private client, effective from 15 July. Hussain joins from Evelyn Partners.
• PKF Francis Clark promotes Laura Howson to director specialising in private client tax.
• Evelyn Partners appoints Emma Queen as a business tax partner in their Cambridge office. Queen joins from PwC. 
• Bishop Fleming appoints Iona Martin and Zoe Martin as tax partners in its Cheltenham office. Iona Martin, formerly of KPMG, specialises in the wealth sector with tax reporting, tax remediation and tax risk management. Zoe Martin, formerly of RSM, specialises in capital gains tax and inheritance tax planning for HNWIs, owner managed businesses and trusts.
• Menzies LLP promotes Helen Cuthbert to private client partner.
• Claritas Tax appoints James Allen as senior associate. Allen, formerly of KPMG, specialises in corporation tax, across transactions and advisory and is based in the Manchester office.

1 July 2024

• BKL joins DFK UKI, a national group within the DFK International global alliance of accounting firms across 465 member offices and 90 countries, following their merger with existing member Wilson Wright.
• Saffery appoints Joshua Creedy as a private wealth director to the firm’s Edinburgh office. Creedy is an experienced private client tax adviser who joins from Deloitte.
• Simmons & Simmons promotes Craig Kirkham-Wilson to supervising associate in the contentious tax team. Kirkham-Wilson specialises in complex tax investigations and high-value tax disputes. 
• Fieldfisher promotes Tariva Thomas to director in the Birmingham office, and Tom O’Reilly to senior associate in the London office of the contentious tax team.
• Mayer Brown promotes Tamar Ruiz to senior associate, specialising in corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, group reorganisations, financing transactions and investment fund planning. 
• PKF Francis Clark promotes nine new directors across a variety of departments, including Laura Howson (private client tax).
• Contentious tax expert Lauren Redhead is promoted to Legal Director at DLA Piper.

24 June 2024

• Moore Kingston Smith LLP appoints Alison Kerrey as partner. Kerry, formerly of Saffery, will lead the tax technical team.
• KPMG appoints Hannah Dobson as head of fintech, having previously been co-head of fintech with John Hallsworth, who is retiring from the firm in July. Dobson is also a partner in KPMG’s indirect tax team.
• BDO LLP appoints Richard Watson and Oliver Pumfrey as tax partners. Watson, formerly of KPMG, specialises in the life sciences and technology sectors and will be based in Cambridge. Pumfrey, formerly of FTI Consulting, specialises in corporate tax advice to private and public companies and will be based in Guildford. 
• DSG appoints Simon Denye as a tax partner in its Liverpool City Centre office. Denye’s specialism includes group reorganisations, share schemes, and mergers and acquisitions. He joins from UHY Hacker Young in Manchester.
• Oury Clark has acquired American Tax Returns, a firm which specialises in dual US and UK tax advisory services led by David Treitel.

17 June 2024

• Jim Harra, Chief Executive and First Permanent Secretary of HMRC, is awarded a knighthood for public service. David Alan Evans, Director General and General Counsel, Legal Group at HMRC, has been awarded the Order of the Bath, for services to the government legal profession, to tax and to diversity. Archana Rao Dannamaneni, Customer Compliance Group at HMRC, and BeeBee Rashida Giddings, Higher Officer at HMRC, have been awarded OBEs for services to tax compliance and for public service respectively. 
• ICAEW’s former Chief Executive, Michael Izza, has been appointed CBE in the King’s Birthday Honours for his services to accounting, audit and sustainability.
• Blick Rothenberg appoints Gabby Donald, Phil Barrett, Helen Humphries and Malli Kini as partners. Donald specialises in VAT and was most recently on a secondment from KPMG to UK Finance to work on VAT policy and currently chair of CIOT’s indirect taxes committee. Barrett specialises in corporate tax and joins from Grant Thornton. Humphries and Kini specialise in private client and join from BDO and EY Private respectively.
• Mishcon de Reya appoints Anil Arora as corporate tax partner. Arora joins from Blick Rothenberg and provides specialist corporate tax advice to start up, emerging and venture backed companies.
• Crowe UK has acquired Kent-based accounting firm Dendy Neville. As part of the deal, the three Dendy Neville directors, David Hill, Andrew Perkins and Paul Gittins will join Crowe as partners.
• Kilsby Williams promotes Lucy Creese, Stuart Evans, Dafydd Ford, Rob Meredith and Kaye Morris to partners within the firm’s tax, growth and transactions departments. 

10 June 2024

• Kyle Rainsford returns to Addleshaw Goddard as partner in the firm’s London tax team. Rainsford, who joins from Travers Smith, is experienced in advising on UK corporate and real estate tax.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints Youcef Toumi as tax director. Toumi, formerly of BDO UK LLP, advises individuals on coming to and leaving the UK, non-UK domiciled individuals and offshore trustees.
• WTS Hansuke appoints Stephen Callahan as head of transformation at WTS Hansuke - Digital. Callahan, formerly an independent consultant, has significant experience in the areas of tax strategy, risk, governance and performance across all sectors and sizes of business. His work on the Three Lines of Defense for Tax first appeared in 2009, and he has also contributed to regulatory thinking in this area.
• Sara Morgan returns to Fieldfisher as director. Morgan, formerly of Payne Hicks Beach, advises on personal taxation, trust and estate planning for individuals and trustees in the UK and overseas.
• RSM UK appoints Rob Pullen as private client tax partner. Pullen specialism includes residence, domicile and remittance basis planning, as well as the UK tax implications of establishing offshore structures such as trusts, companies and foundations. He joins from Blick Rothenberg.
• PwC appoints current head of tax Laura Hinton as managing partner.
• Cowgills promotes James Greenhalgh to tax partner, specialising in corporate restructuring. 

3 June 2024

• Johnston Carmichael promotes Gillian McColgan to tax partner, who specialises in compliance and advisory services to businesses across energy, engineering and manufacturing and food and drink.
• Oxford Nanopore Technologies appoints Karen Mulcahy as its Indirect Tax Director. Mulcahy joins from Sothebys.
• Omnicom promotes David Barry to Group Tax Director.

28 May 2024

• Jeanette Zaman and Jonathan Cannan have been appointed as judges in the Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber).
• BDO announces Mark Shaw as next Managing Partner from 1 October 2024.
• Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher appoints Lucy Urwin as Tax Associate. Urwin, formerly of Macfarlanes, specialises on a broad range of UK and cross-border corporate tax issues, including advising large multinational groups on the structuring of demergers and group reorganisations.
• Jerroms Miller Specialist Tax appoints Daphne Hemingway as VAT Director. Hemingway, formerly of TC Group, specialises in property, construction, dispute resolution with HMRC and VAT litigation, M&A activity, charities and not-for-profit, international services and the cross-border movement of goods, finance, and technology.
• Evelyn Partners appoints Rick Shaw as a partner in the employer solutions team in its Birmingham office. Shaw, formerly of Vialto Partners, specialises in global mobility tax and consulting services to companies and their cross-border employees.

20 May 2024

• MHA announces a merger with Roberts Nathan in Ireland with offices in Dublin and Cork, effective 1 July 2024. This new partnership will be known as Baker Tilly Ireland.
• Burges Salmon promotes Tim Williams to partner in the private client team, specialising in tax, estate planning and trust work.
• Cooper Parry appoints Simon Shaw as partner and head of indirect tax. Shaw, formerly of KPMG, specialises in the retail, automotive and leisure sectors.
• HW Fisher promotes Martin Smith as Head of the Sports Department, specialising in personal tax and limited companies in the sports and entertainment sector.
• HURST appoints Karen Chadwick as a partner as it launches a private client tax service. Chadwick, formerly of Azets, specialises in trusts and inheritance tax.
• Mills & Reeve appoints Ravi Francis as private client partner. Francis, formerly of Gateway Legal, specialises in relocations to and from the UK, UK and offshore trusts and international tax planning.

13 May 2024

• RSM UK appoints Lynsey Cooper as corporate tax partner. Cooper, formerly of PwC, specialises in compliance, international structuring, financing, cash repatriation, tax strategy and HMRC enquiries.
• Ashurst promotes Sara Mardell to tax partner, specialising in corporate tax aspects of development finance, commercial leasing from a landlord or tenant perspective, and both corporate and asset acquisitions and disposals.
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints Siv Devakumar as tax partner. Devakumar, formerly from Travers Smith, specialises in the taxation of corporates, asset managers, institutional investors and management teams.
• Bishop Fleming promotes Linda Simmonds and Becky Targett to tax directors. Simmonds' specialism includes tax aspects on the acquisition and sale of companies by both individuals and corporate groups. Targett's specialism includes corporation tax compliance obligations and international tax.

7 May 2024

• Simmons & Simmons appoints Helen Coward as a tax partner. Coward, formerly of Charles Russell Speechlys, has a broad practice with particular experience in the taxation of owner-managed businesses and structuring real estate holdings.
• BDO appoints David Ellis to global employer services partner and the new lead for people on BDO’s tax executive board which sets, monitors and drives the strategy for the firm’s tax practice; Julia McCullagh as the firm’s national lead for corporate international tax services; and David Britton as the new national lead for UK corporate tax compliance.
• RSM UK promotes Flora Barnes to partner and will lead the firm’s tax risk and governance practice, which includes the senior accounting officer regime, UK tax strategy, Business Risk Review+, Tax Control Framework, and Corporate Criminal Offence.
• Taylor Wessing promotes two new senior tax counsel, Harriet Revington and Bridget Winters. Revington specialises in corporate tax and transactional matters including VAT and SDLT with a particular focus on the real estate sector. Winters specialises in advising on the tax aspects of cross-border M&A and private equity transactions as well as joint venture and venture capital arrangements.
• Old Square Tax Chambers welcomes Christopher Vallis as a new tenant. After nearly 10 years in HMRC's legal department working as a tax litigator, Vallis will specialise in enquiries and discovery assessments, including procedural challenges to the validity of HMRC assessments and penalties, closure notice applications and schedule 36 information notices.
• Saint & Co appoints Alex Dent as its new Head of Tax at its main headquarters in Carlisle.
• Gravita promotes Kate Greenhough to corporate tax partner.
• Knill James promotes Jamie Bird to tax partner specialising in private client tax.
• Sean Randall, former Partner at Blick Rothenberg, launches Sean Randall Tax which specialises in stamp taxes advice.

29 April 2024

• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer promotes Rose Swaffield and Sam Withnall to counsel specialising in tax in its London office, with effect from 1 May.
• DAC Beachcroft appoints Julian Feiner as partner and Head of Tax. Feiner, formerly of Clifford Chance, specialises in corporate and real estate transactions, tax audits and disputes, as well as advising insurers on warranty and indemnity insurance and specific tax risk policies.  
• PKF Smith Cooper appoints Jack Bonehill as Employment Tax Director and Sam Parker-Hully as Capital Allowances Director. Bonehill, formerly of Dains Accountants, specialises in the recruitment, logistics and construction sectors. Parker-Hully, formerly of KPMG, specialises in capital allowances related to the construction, refurbishment and acquisition of commercial property.
• Crowe promotes Kay Monks to partner, whose specialism includes advising established international groups on tax issues related to UK start ups.
• Rawlinson & Hunter LLP promotes Jeremy Stein and Dan Taylor to directors. Stein specialises in non-dom taxation, UK residence, domicile and remittance planning issues, while Taylor focuses on corporate tax, specialising in corporate structuring, employee share schemes, tax due diligence and company share valuations for tax purposes.
• JRW Hogg & Thorburn promotes Christiaan Hansen to partner. Hansen, who rejoined the firm in 2023 from Greaves West & Ayre, specialises in inheritance tax and succession planning and personal tax and is based at the Hawick office in the Scottish borders. 

22 April 2024

• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer announces 23 partner promotions, including Emily Szasz in the tax team, to take effect from 1 May 2024.
• haysmacintyre appoints Said Bile as R&D Tax Director. Bile, formerly of Crowe UK, specialises in R&D tax, grant funding, creative sector tax reliefs and Patent Box.
• RSM UK promotes Flora Barnes, Kate Aitchison, Lewis Tompkins and Paul Marcroft to partners. Barnes is a corporate tax partner specialising in tax risk and governance and tax function management, Aitchison and Tompkins specialise in personal tax and Marcroft in tax investigations.
• Claritas Tax promotes Peter Hully as tax partner specialising in corporate transactions across the M&A industry.
• Birketts appoints Paul Thompson as partner in its private client advisory team. Thompson, formerly of Roythornes Ltd, has experience across a range of private client specialisms including capital tax planning, trusts, succession planning, wills and probate and providing foreign asset, non-resident and non-domicile advice.
• PKF Francis Clark promotes Sarah Brown and Mark Bishop to partners. Brown specialises in advising high net worth individuals and internationally mobile clients on a range of compliance and tax planning needs, including residence and domicile issues. Bishop is based in Plymouth where he helps lead the firm’s VAT and customs team.
• Duncan & Toplis promotes Graeme Hills to head of tax, specialising in corporation tax, capital allowances and land and property VAT.

15 April 2024

• The CIOT announces its new leadership team for 2024/25. Current CIOT Deputy President Charlotte Barbour will become the new President, with Nichola Ross Martin as Deputy President and Paul Aplin as Vice-President. They will take up their new roles on 30 May at the Institute’s AGM.
• Interpath launches a tax practice in Ireland with Denis Herlihy. Herlihy, formerly Managing Partner at BDO Limerick, specialises in tax advisory services including the resolution of tax controversy and Revenue interventions, tax support for mergers and acquisitions, insolvency and restructuring.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints Jonathan Riley as corporate partner in its Bristol office. Riley, formerly head of tax at Grant Thornton UK, specialises in advising owner-managed and private equity-backed businesses and larger corporate clients.
• Dow Schofield Watts launches a R&D tax relief service headed by Shenal Wijetunge. Wijetunge, who joins from Signature Group, also advises on Patent Box and Land Remediation Relief.

8 April 2024

• Wilson Wright merges with BKL. Both firms provide specialist accountancy, tax and business advisory services to assist fast-growing owner-managed businesses, SMEs, entrepreneurs and high net worth individuals.
• MHA merges with MHA Moore and Smalley. This is the fourth deal that MHA, the UK member of Baker Tilly International, has completed in the past year.
• CMS has entered into a global partnership with Harvey, one of the world’s leading generative AI (GenAI) platforms. CMS will introduce Harvey in a phased approach across its member firms, starting in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK.
• RSM UK appoints Stephen Fuller as tax partner based in London who will lead a multi-disciplinary team, delivering tax advisory and assurance to a broad spectrum of financial services clients. Fuller previously led the financial services tax team for Mazars.
• Skadden promotes Jisun Choi to partner, who specialises in international and UK corporate tax matters for multinational corporations, private equity funds and financial institutions, with particular focus on mergers and acquisitions and group restructurings, as well as associated financings.
• Mayer Brown appoints Sam Riesenberg as a partner in its tax practice in London where he will focus on providing advice in the areas of asset management and fund matters across the US, Europe, and the Middle East.  He joins the firm from KPMG’s Washington national tax practice.
• Azets appoints Nick Cullen as tax partner and UK head of the firm’s recently launched transfer pricing team. Cullen joins the firm from BDO.
• Lubbock Fine promotes David Portman to private client partner who specialises in advising sports players, entertainers and non-doms.
• BCLP appoints Kyle O'Sullivan as partner in its Global Tax Advice and Controversy team in London, specialising in public and private M&A, group reorganisations, corporate financing and IP-related agreements, with particular experience in the energy sector. O’Sullivan joins the firm from Slaughter and May.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints Jonathan Riley as corporate tax partner specialising in compliance and advising companies on acquisitions and disposals, refinancing and corporate residency and permanent establishment risk. Riley joins from Grant Thornton.
• Lewis Silkin promotes Kathy Granby to partner and Head of Share Incentives, specialising in private and listed company employee share incentive plans and employment taxation.

28 March 2024

• Amanda Brown KC and Michael Blackwell have been appointed as Judges of the First-tier Tribunal by the senior president of tribunals, the Rt Hon Sir Keith Lindblom, with effect from 25 March and 2 April 2024 respectively.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints Rhiannon Baynham, Robert Waterhouse and Joe Martin to its corporate tax team at the firm’s Bristol office. Baynham, formerly of HMRC, is an international and corporate tax specialist focusing on large corporates and mid-sized businesses and joins as senior manager. Waterhouse, formerly of ForrestBrown, joins as a manager specialising in R&D tax credits and corporate tax. Martin joins as an assistant manager from KPMG, where he worked on client tax governance, compliance and advisory.
• Macfarlanes promotes Joe Robinson, Paul Hardwick and Michael Shaw to partners. Robinson specialises in asset management tax and M&A, with a focus on private capital managers in its Tax and Reward practice; Hardwick specialises in the governance, succession, trust and tax issues facing international families and their businesses; and Shaw advises individuals, trustees and family offices around the world on cross-border tax, structuring and succession.
• Linklaters promotes Alexei Franks and Dr. Julian Böhmer to partners. Franks is based in the London office, advising financial sponsors, financial investors and funds on the tax aspects of their transactions with specialist knowledge of real estate transactions and M&A work. Böhmer is based in the Düsseldorf office with over ten years of experience specialising in managing the complex tax issues of domestic and multinational corporate clients, banks and financial sponsors.
• David Bedenham joins Devereux Chambers from 11KBW. Bedenham has a broad practice that includes public law, indirect tax, regulatory and disciplinary, inquests and penalty appeals.
• Mark Taylor is re-elected as chair of Kreston’s Global Tax Group for another three-year term, responsible for coordinating the Kreston Global Tax Group and leading its tax network of 5,000 advisers in 115 countries worldwide.
• Mazars appoints Jeremy Brown as Financial Services Transfer Pricing Partner in London. Previously from Deloitte, Brown will be advising financial services clients across insurance, banking and asset management on their global transfer pricing obligations. 
• Claritas Tax has promoted Adam Keates and Cass Cornforth to associate partners. Keates specialises in private client and mergers and acquisitions, and Cornforth in the corporate and transaction taxes teams. Faith Ross is promoted to senior manager and works in the innovations and corporate service. Faye Jacklin has been promoted to manager in the private client team.
• ForrestBrown promotes Angela Banerjee to Associate Director. Based in the Scotland office, Banerjee is a Patent Box relief specialist.

19 March 2024

• American advisory firm CFGI appoints Alex Baker as its first tax partner in the UK, based in London. He joins from Deloitte where he was a director in the private equity and portfolio companies tax team, and specialised in advising private equity backed companies with all tax matters throughout the investment lifecycle. At CFGI, Baker will continue to have a primary focus on private equity, building a team to deliver a full offering of fund and portfolio company tax services, including M&A, compliance and advisory.
• Blick Rothenberg appoints John Bull as its first head of private client for the UK, having previously been head of US UK private client. He has over 17 years’ experience as a personal tax adviser, specialising in advising private clients on their US/UK personal tax issues.
• Chartered accountants and business advisers Johnston Carmichael promotes James Hurst to Head of VAT Disputes & Litigation, having previously been senior VAT manager at the firm.
• KPMG announced this week that it is incorporating generative AI into its Digital Gateway for Tax as an integrated component, giving clients access to the full suite of KPMG tax and legal technologies. This follows an earlier announcement that KPMG UK has formed a strategic alliance with Databricks, a leader in data and artificial intelligence. 
• The CIOT welcomes its 20,000th member. 

13 March 2024

4 March 2024

• DLA Piper appoints Andrew Sackey to its Corporate Crime and Investigations (CCI) team in London. Sackey’s practice is primarily focused on large scale, domestic and international bribery, fraud, tax evasion and money laundering investigations. He joins the firm from Pinsent Masons.
• MHA Moore and Smalley appoints Andy Disley as a senior manager in the tax advisory team. Disley, formerly of City Football Group, specialises in international tax matters for both OMBs and larger corporates. He will be based in the firm’s Liverpool office. 

23 February 2024

• KPMG UK and legal technology company Blue J launch announce the launch of new generative AI powered product to answer tax research questions. KPMG will have exclusive access to the tool, Ask Blue J, among the big four accountancy firms in the UK for the first three years. Ask Blue J uses OpenAI's GPT models, fine-tuned for tax, and accesses Blue J’s curated database of current tax content.
• M&A insurance advisory services provider Howden M&A appoints Gregor McMillan as head of execution in the tax & contingent risks team. McMillan joins the firm from Barclays.
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints tax specialists David Levy and Brian Senie as partners in Washington DC and New York respectively. Both join the firm from Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

20 February 2024

• PwC UK, alongside alliance partners Harvey and OpenAI, announces the launch of its UK tax trained AI model. Available to all 2,300 PwC UK tax professionals, it will act as an AI assistant generating tax content. The tax AI assistant tool cross references and has been trained on case law, legislation and other underlying sources, together with PwC UK’s own IP.
• Osborne Clarke appoints tax disputes specialist Jack Prytherch as a partner in its tax disputes team. Prytherch, formerly of CMS, advises on direct and indirect contentious tax matters, including: tax litigation and ADR; HMRC enquiries and compliance checks; HMRC civil information powers; tax offences and serious investigations; voluntary disclosures and penalty mitigation; and commercial tax disputes. He will be based in the firm’s London office.
• RSM UK appoints Angela Keery as a director. Keery, formerly of Baker Tilly Moore, has over 30 years’ experience, advising businesses, individual shareholders, and their families on tax compliance and tax planning. In her new role she will lead RSM’s Belfast team to develop its tax services across Northern Ireland.
• Mercer & Hole appoints Balbor Sundar as a partner in its corporate and business tax team. Sundar has more than 30 years’ experience advising business owners with a particular focus on tax issues arising from group restructurings, international issues, including certificates of residence and the application of double tax treaties. She re-joins the firm from RSM UK.

13 February 2024

• Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher appoints Benjamin Rapp as a tax partner based in Germany. Rapp, formerly of Weil Gotshal & Manges, advises on domestic and international tax law, with a focus on private equity and M&A.
• MHA merges with Edinburgh-based accountancy firm Geoghegans. The Edinburgh merger is the third deal MHA has completed in the past year following mergers with two firms in Wales.

6 February 2024

• Freeths appoints Stephen Jones as a partner in Birmingham. Jones, formerly of DLA Piper, has almost 30 years’ experience advising on all tax aspects of property and corporate acquisitions and disposals, including development, investment, joint ventures, corporate mergers, demergers, group reorganisations and reconstructions, private equity transactions and international deals, both in the UK and internationally. 
• BDO appoints transaction tax specialist Steve Round as a partner based in the Midlands. He joins the firm from Cooper Parry.
• Jasprit Singh, formerly of Pinsent Masons, joins RPC as an Associate in its tax disputes team.

29 January 2024

• Alvarez & Marsal appoints Anthony Whatling, Steve Henshaw and Tom Lobb to its tax team in the London office. Whatling, formerly of Evelyn Partners, has more than 20 years’ experience in providing tax advice to ultra-high and high net worth clients, offshore trusts and family offices and joins the firm as head of private client. Indirect tax specialist Henshaw, formerly of EY, joins the firm as a managing director. Lobb, formerly of EY, joins the firm as a managing director specialising in international corporate tax.  
• Specialist financial services tax firm Hansuke Consulting becomes a member of the global tax practice network WTS Global. As a result of the partnership Hansuke Consulting will operate under the new name WTS Hansuke.
• Streets chartered accountants appoints Andrew Cockman as a tax partner. Cockman, formerly of Azets, specialises in tax planning for non-UK domiciliaries and their offshore trusts, as well as inheritance tax and capital gains tax consulting for shareholders in family companies and their family trusts.
• Independent accounting and business advisory firm HURST promotes Sam Ryan to tax manager and Liza Whiley to associate tax manager.

22 January 2024

• The Lord Chancellor announces 95 new King’s Counsel, including, in tax, Sadiya Choudhury (Pump Court Tax Chambers), Michael Firth (Gray’s Inn Tax Chambers) and Christopher Stone (Devereux). The awards for the 2024 cohort will be made on 18 March.
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints Ceinwen Rees, formerly of Macfarlanes, as a Partner in its tax team. Rees advises on a broad range of tax and structuring matters with a particular focus on advising investment fund managers on their fund, house, carry and co-investment structuring.
• Squire Patton Boggs appoints David Nisbet as a Partner in its tax strategy & benefits practice group in London. Nisbet, formerly of Osborne Clarke, specialises in tax and structuring in the funds and private equity sector.
• Haysmacintyre promotes corporate tax specialist James Gramston to Director.

17 January 2024

• Mayer Brown appoints Ben Eaton as a partner in its tax practice in London. Eaton has extensive experience advising on the tax aspects of real estate investment, financing, development, and leasing, as well as the structuring of funds and joint ventures investing in real estate and real estate debt, and transactions involving real estate operating businesses. He joins the firm from Greenberg Traurig.
• Milbank promotes corporate tax lawyer Alan Rafferty to partner in the firm’s London office. Rafferty advises on a broad range of international transactions.
• Kingsley Napley appoints Krishna Mahajan, formerly of Stewarts, as an Associate in its tax disputes and investigations team.
• Vicky Topps rejoins KPMG as Director in its tax disputes team. She joins from HMRC where she was a deputy director in the department’s large business team.
• Louisa Gonzalez is appointed as Head of Tax at Johnson Matthey plc. She previously worked at Convatec Group plc.
• Becky Hurford is appointed as Head of Tax at Watches of Switzerland Group plc. She joins the firm from Avon.
• Farrer & Co appoints Tristan Honeyborne as an Associate in its Private Client team. He joins from Macfarlanes.

8 January 2024

• BDO appoints Lucy Saunders as a partner in its private client tax team. Saunders, formerly of Blick Rothenberg, has 20 years’ experience with particular expertise in advising international high net worth individuals on complex tax matters including matrimonial, succession,  inheritance, trust and company areas.
• Travers Smith promotes Kyle Rainsford to senior counsel. Rainsford leads the firm’s real estate tax practice. He advises on all aspects of commercial tax but has particular expertise in the real estate sector and in VAT. He advises institutional real estate investors, real estate funds, and foreign investors on the tax consequences of the acquisition and disposal of real estate, the development of commercial and residential property, and real estate financing. He also advises companies and unit trusts holding real estate as well as leases and letting issues.
• Kingsley Napley appoints Sophie Voelcker as a partner in its private client team. Voelcker advises UK resident and/or domiciled clients regarding wealth structuring, estate planning and trusts, with a particular interest in any cross-border taxation and succession issues for clients with international assets or who have relocated abroad. She joins the firm from New Quadrant Partners.

11 December 2023

• WTT appoints Lisa Vanderheide as a tax director. Vanderheide, formerly of Stewarts, is an experienced adviser and ex-HMRC inspector of taxes. She specialises in complex tax enquiries including COP 9 and COP 8 investigations. 
  
• Alvarez & Marsal appoints Andy Murray and Prasam Patel as managing directors. Murray, formerly of Kroll, has more than 25 years’ experience in international tax, tax policy and investment banking, with a primary focus on M&A transactions and private credit markets. Patel has over 17 years of experience in real estate and infrastructure tax. He joins the firm from Mazars.
• BDO appoints David Yewdall as partner in the firm’s expatriate tax and global employer services team. Yewdall, formerly of Evelyn Partners, has significant experience working with businesses on global mobility management, domestic employee tax and employer compliance.
• KPMG International appoints David Rowlands to the newly created role of global head of AI. Rowlands was formerly head of consulting for KPMG in the UK.

4 December 2023

• Evelyn Partners appoints Suzy Hawkey as private client director in the firm’s Cambridge office. Hawkey, formerly of Deloitte, is an experienced tax adviser and trusts and estates practitioner.
• MHA Moore & Smalley appoints Michael Spencer as a tax partner in the firm’s Liverpool office. Spencer supports clients with a broad range of tax advice, having a particular specialism in business restructuring, exit readiness, succession planning and wealth protection. He joins the firm from Grant Thornton.
• BKL merges with commercial finance specialists CFPro Ltd. Their team will continue trading under the CFPro name as part of BKL.
• PwC UK’s deals practice announces it will co-create a PwC deals and Harvey AI platform that will enhance the M&A process with generative AI assistance. The announcement builds on the alliance between PwC’s Global Tax & Legal Services, OpenAI and Harvey, which will train and deploy foundation models for tax, legal and human resources services.

27 November 2023

• Kirkland & Ellis appoints Ceinwen Rees as tax partner. Rees, formerly of Macfarlanes, advises clients on a broad range of corporate tax and structuring issues with a specific focus on counseling investment fund managers on fund, house, carry and co-investment structuring. She also advises on the tax implications of transactions including acquisitions, buyouts, asset sales and restructurings.
• RSM appoints Jill Kaur as partner in the firm’s national private client tax team. Kaur has over 25 years’ experience advising high and ultra-high net worth individuals, non-doms and owner-managed businesses on complex tax matters including international tax affairs and multi-generational wealth. She joins RSM’s Birmingham office from Joseph Hage Aaronson.

20 November 2023

• Mazars and FORVIS, the eighth largest public accounting firm in the United States, announce a new global network, effective 1 June 2024. The network will operate under a single brand worldwide, Forvis Mazars. Both network members will remain owned by their current respective partnerships.
• BPR Heaton, a Leeds based accountancy firm, joins UHY Hacker Young. BPR Heaton, a full-service accountancy firm, brings with it five partners and 35 team members and will rebrand as UHY BPR Heaton.
• NHD Tax Solutions Ltd appoints tax dispute specialist Sarah Scala as equity partner. She joins the firm from Claritas Tax.

13 November 2023 

• At HM Treasury, Laura Trott MBE is appointed chief secretary, with responsibility for public expenditure. She was previously parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department for Work and Pensions between October 2022 and November 2023; Nigel Huddleston is appointed financial secretary, with responsibility for the UK tax system. A former Deloitte and Google employee, Huddleston was previously minister of state at the Department for Business and Trade and before that government whip (Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury) from 20 September 2022 to 7 February 2023; and Bim Afolami is appointed economic secretary, the City Minister responsible for financial services.
  
• Harper James appoints employee incentives specialist Samantha Lenox as head of employee incentives. Lennox, formerly of Alvarez & Marsal, has over 20 years’ experience supporting clients from SMEs to multinationals with the design, implementation, communication and operation of employee and management incentive arrangements. Her appointment forms part of the firm’s plan to double its number of lawyers by hiring 60 new solicitors by 2025.
• HW Fisher promotes Sam Dewes to partner in the firm’s private client department. Dewes has over 10 years experience of advising UK and international high net worth individuals, trusts and estates, with particular expertise in areas such as complex international structures, UK residence and domicile matters, UK property issues and succession planning.
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints James Morgan as a partner. Morgan, formerly of Linklaters, advises private equity sponsors and other alternative asset managers on the tax and structural issues arising from complex corporate transactions and financings. In particular, he has significant experience advising on the tax aspects of corporate reorganizations and a broad range of debt restructuring transactions as well as credit-related transactions and credit funds.

6 November 2023

• Pinsent Masons appoints VAT specialist Bryn Reynolds as partner in the firm’s London office. Reynolds, formerly of Simmons & Simmons, advises businesses on all aspects of VAT matters including disputes with HMRC as well as alternative dispute resolution. He has a broad sector-focused practice with a particular emphasis on the financial services and technology sectors.
• Stewarts appoints Giles Salmond as partner in the firm’s tax litigation and resolution team in London. Salmond has over 25 years of experience with a particular specialism in complex VAT litigation. He joins from Eversheds Sutherland.
• Moore Kingston Smith promotes Dave Coates to partner. Coates is a corporate and business tax team partner, specialising in providing expert guidance to owner-managed businesses and their shareholders on a wide range of tax matters, including corporate structuring, employee share schemes and shareholder exits.
• Latham & Watkins promotes Aoife McCabe to partner, effective 1 January 2024. McCabe is a member of the transactional tax practice and tax department. Based in London, she advises financial institutions, private equity funds, and multinational corporations on complex transactional tax matters.
• MHA promotes corporate tax specialist Beverley Scott to partner.
• Evelyn Partners acquires Creaseys Group Ltd, a firm of accountants and tax specialists based in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. The team of over 50 at Creaseys offers a range of assurance, advisory and tax services to both businesses and individuals, with a particular expertise in advising private equity executives on their tax affairs.

30 October 2023

• Alvarez & Marsal Tax appoints Kathie Haunton as a managing director, effective immediately. Dr Haunton, formerly of Deloitte, has more than 20 years’ experience supporting companies with R&D tax relief claims. She advises a variety of corporates, from large multinationals to SMEs.
• Rayner Essex promotes Marina Trinchese as private client tax director. Trinchese advises on all areas related to private client tax compliance and advisory matters.

24 October 2023

• Dame Ingrid Simler, Lady Justice of Appeal, is appointed as a justice of the Supreme Court. Dame Simler practised at the Bar at Devereux Chambers and has experience in employment law, tax, public law and criminal law. She was appointed as junior counsel to the Inland Revenue (common law) in 2002 and took silk in 2006. She became a judge of the High Court (King's Bench Division) in 2013 and was sworn in as a lady justice of the Court of Appeal in 2019. Her appointment follows the retirement of Lord Kitchin. 
• Gateley Capitus appoints Steven Chi as a senior capital allowances consultant. He joins the firm from Veritas Advisory Ltd.
• PKF Littlejohn promotes Mimi Chan and Tom Golding to partner in the firm’s corporate tax team. 

16 October 2023

• Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling are merging to create A&O Shearman following a successful partnership vote. More than 99% of the votes cast at each firm were in favour of the merger. A&O Shearman will have 3,950 lawyers and 800 partners across 48 offices with combined revenues of approximately $3.5bn. Following a period of active integration planning the final closing of the transaction is anticipated in or before May 2024.
• RSM UK promotes Rob Pullar (corporate tax), James Smith and Kerrie Willis (employer solutions) and Carolyn Risdell, Joanne Torrens and Jason Wellden (VAT) to director.

9 October 2023

• Blick Rothenberg appoints contentious tax and tax disputes specialist Paul Noble as partner. Noble joins the firm from Mishcon de Reya.
• Azets appoints Vincent Costello, formerly of ETC Tax, as private client tax director.
• Cooper Parry appoints Evelina Panchal as tax director in the firm’s tech & high growth team. She joins the firm from Deloitte.
• Cowgills appoints Paul Hammond as its first indirect tax partner. He joins the firm from PwC.
• Mercer & Hole promotes Lynsey Lord to partner in the firm’s private client team. Lord advises individuals and their families on complex domestic and international tax affairs.

2 October 2023

• Dow Schofield Watts acquires STS Europe. The firm, which specialises in advising high-net worth individuals, will become part of DSW Tax Advisory, Dow Schofield Watts’ tax practice.
• Crowe promotes corporate tax specialist Emma Reynolds to partner with immediate effect. Reynolds advises high-growth owner-managed businesses and mid-sized corporates on compliance and business and shareholder tax planning, complex corporate reorganisations and other transaction-related tax due diligence. She is based in the firm’s Kent office.
• EY promotes Alistair Godwin to director. Godwin advises on tax issues for clients in the private credit industry. EY also promotes Hannah Hurley to senior manager in the firm’s private management taxes team.
• Stewarts appoints Guy Bud as associate barrister. Bud, formerly of Charles Russel Speechlys, specialises in disputes across a broad range of direct and indirect taxes for individual and corporate clients.

25 September 2023

• PKF Francis Clark appoints Jamie Preston as corporate tax director. Preston, formerly of Grant Thornton, has more than 25 years’ experience advising businesses across a range of sectors, including large national and international groups, on both domestic and international financial reporting and tax compliance obligations and will be based in Exeter.
• HMRC promotes Andrew Donaldson to deputy director, large business compliance.
• Macfarlanes promotes Lucy Urwin to senior associate in its tax and reward group.
• Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling announce that their respective partnerships will start voting on their proposed merger on 28 September with voting closing on 13 October. The outcome will be announced shortly afterwards. The thresholds required for the votes are 75% in support of the combination, for each firm.

18 September 2023

• UHY Hacker Young expands its tax practice with the appointment of new corporate tax partner, Anthony Davies. During his 20 year career, Davies developed a specialism in corporate real estate, advising a wide range of property sector businesses on tax issues affecting activities from investment to development and construction. He joins the firm from south east regional accountancy firm Carpenter Box.
• MHA appoints Andrew Fairhurst as director and head of tax technology based in the group’s London office. Fairhurst, formerly of EY, has over 20 years’ experience with a background in both tax and technology.
• Mazars promotes Claire Cowen to partner in the firm’s international tax practice. Cowen specializes in advising multi-national groups on all aspects of their UK and international corporate tax affairs, including tax efficient business structuring, acquisitions and disposals, corporate governance and compliance and financing arrangements.

11 September 2023

• FTI Consulting appoints Tom Shaw as an indirect tax senior director. Shaw joins the firm from Deloitte.
• Andersen in the UK appoints Bradley Phillips as a part-time director. Phillips has thirty years’ experience in corporate tax and is also a visiting tutor at BPP. He was previously at PwC.
• Fieldfisher appoints Wesley Grimm as a tax advisor in the firm’s contentious tax team. Grimm is a South African qualified lawyer with contentious tax experience in both South Africa and the UK and will become an associate on completion of the SQE in the New Year. He joins the firm from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
• James Davin and Julian Hickey join virtual tax chambers Addington Chambers. Davin has a broad advisory and contentious tax practice. He advises in all the main areas of UK revenue law, with a particular focus on capital taxes. Hickey specialises in revenue law and related areas of chancery and partnership law. He has over 20 years’ experience providing representation to clients in sectors such as property, intangibles, high net worth individuals, cryptocurrencies, finance and retail. His practice is primarily disputes-focused.
• Clare Cruickshank, formerly of Global Cloud Xchange, joins The Telegraph as head of tax. 

4 September 2023

• Interpath Advisory appoints Matthew Roach as managing director in the firm’s tax team. Roach, formerly of KPMG, specialises in real estate and funds taxation and has extensive experience advising on the taxation of UK and European property transactions, including leading complex multi-jurisdictional cross-border M&A transactions. He also specialises in fund structuring, real estate finance and loan portfolio transactions.
• Saffery Champness, the accounting and advisory firm, rebrands to become Saffery.
• Simmons & Simmons promotes Heather Rowlands to partner in the firm’s corporate tax group. Rowlands specialises in disputes concerning both direct and indirect taxes, including environmental taxes.
• Azets appoints Leigh Davenport as a tax partner based in Leeds. Davenport joins the firm from KPMG. 

29 August 2023

• FTI Consulting appoints infrastructure funds and M&A tax expert Angus Wilson as a senior managing director. He will additionally lead the firm’s EMEA infrastructure tax advisory practice. Wilson, formerly of KPMG, has more than 27 years’ experience providing M&A, transactions and international tax advice to clients with assets in Asia Pacific, Australia and Europe. 
• haysmacintyre appoints Dougie Todd as a partner in the firm’s VAT team. Todd joins the firm from bet365.  
• Azets appoints Annette Stone as private client tax partner at the firm’s Plymouth office. She joins the firm from Westcotts. 

4 August 2023

• CMS appoints Mark Whiteside as a partner in the firm’s corporate tax team.  Whiteside, formerly of Brabners, is an experienced tax specialist with a focus on transactional work (both corporate and real estate). He advises on company mergers, disposals and reorganisations, shareholder tax advice and negotiating transaction documents, alongside other areas such as advising on enterprise investment schemes and venture capital trusts, employee incentives and VAT advisory work. He will be based in Manchester.
• UHY Hacker Young appoints Nick Donohue as tax partner in the firm’s Manchester office. Donohue has over 25 years’ experience, advising across all areas of tax with a particular interest in company share schemes, group re-organisations and research and development claims. He joins from Royce Peeling Green Ltd.
• Alvarez & Marsal appoints Imran Khan as a managing director based in Manchester. Khan, formerly of Grant Thornton, has over 20 years’ tax experience specialising in transfer pricing matters.
• Albert Goodman appoints Sam Wood as a senior manager. In his new role, Wood will specialise in R&D tax for SME & RDEC businesses in all sectors. He joins the firm from ForrestBrown and will be based in Bristol.
• HW Fisher appoints Andrew Tall as corporate tax partner. Tall has more than 25 years’ experience and advises on a full range of corporation tax services, from R&D claims to M&A due diligence and transaction tax planning. He joins the firm from Greenback Alan.

24 July 2023

• Bishop Fleming promotes Jon Sparkes to partner, based in the firm’s Plymouth office. Sparkes advises on a range of owner-managed businesses. He also leads the firm’s tax services for charity and not-for-profit clients.
• Armstrong Watson appoints Brian Rudkin as a tax partner and head of the firm’s employment tax services. Rudkin, formerly of Johnston Carmichael, has 30 years’ experience advising employers on pay-related issues. 

13 July 2023

• Davis Polk promotes Dominic Foulkes to partner in the firm’s tax practice in London. Foulkes advises a wide range of corporate, financial institution and sponsor clients on U.K. tax issues across the firm’s practice, including in connection with public and private mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and financing transactions, corporate reorganizations and restructurings, and tax advisory matters.
• DLA Piper appoints private equity tax advisor David Quantrill as a partner in its London tax team. Quantrill, formerly of FTI Consulting, advises on structuring multi-billion-pound deals for a range of private equity firms, leading or co-leading on many of their largest M&A transactions.
• Blick Rothenberg appoints employment tax and tax investigations specialist Matt Crawford as a partner in the firm’s global mobility team. Crawford, formerly of PwC, has nearly 15 years’ experience advising clients across all sectors with a particular interest in the cross-border aspects of both employment taxes and resolving tax disputes, including facilitating negotiations between global tax authorities.
• haysmacintyre appoints Sabina Burke as director in the firm’s the business tax team. Burke specialises in corporate transactions, SEIS/EIS tax reliefs, employee share schemes, international tax planning and R&D tax for a diverse range of clients, focusing on owner-managed and entrepreneurial businesses.
• Mercer & Hole appoints Jenny Lazar as a senior tax manager. Lazar, formerly of Saffrey Champness, acts for high-net-worth individuals and their families with a focus on non-domiciled individuals. The firm also appoints Tashini Mootoosamy, formerly of KPMG,  as corporate and business tax manager, Yasmina Kreaa, formerly of BDO, as tax manager and Chris Lovell, formerly of the Apex Group, as trusts manager.
• The ATT announces its team of officers for 2023/24. Current deputy president Simon Groom will become president, with Senga Prior the deputy president and Graham Batty vice-president. Groom is a part time senior tutor at LexisNexis, Prior is a senior tax manager at Johnston Carmichael, specialising in personal tax, and Batty is a retired accountant who previously served as ATT’s president in 2017/18.

11 July 2023

• The Scottish government establishes The Tax Advisory Group. Convened by deputy first minister Shona Robison, it will discuss the tax system as a whole and identify opportunities for broader public engagement. The group consists of leading economists, academics and figures from the private, public and third sectors, including Stuart Adam (IFS), Charlotte Barbour (ICAS), Dave Moxham (Scottish Trades Union Congress) and Dan Neidle (Tax Policy Associates Ltd). The group will meet for the first time on 20 July, with a further two meetings in the lead up to Budget 2024/25. It will then meet four times a year for the remainder of the parliamentary term.
• Matthew Marfini joins ADE Tax as an associate director. Marfini joins from PwC and he specialises in delivering tax managed services to large multinational companies.
• haysmacintyre appoints Paul Atkins as partner and head of property tax. Atkins has over 25 years’ experience with a particular focus on housebuilding and construction firms and joins haysmacintyre from the Vistry Group, where he held the role of group tax director. 
• Blick Rothenberg promotes Michael Holland to partner in the firm’s US/UK private client team. Holland advises business owners and entrepreneurs on their US and UK tax matters.
• DWF appoints Tom Rank as a corporate tax partner in the firm’s tax and private capital team in Birmingham. Rank, formerly of Gowling WLG, has expertise in corporate tax and share scheme matters, particularly in resolving structural tax issues on high value deals.
• Saffery Champness appoints corporate and international tax specialist Neil Kelly as a senior manager. He joins the firm from Radius Payment Solutions Ltd.

4 July 2023

• Professor Rita de la Feria, chair of tax law at the University of Leeds, is appointed to the advisory panel of the UK  Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The OBR’s advisory panel of economic and fiscal experts was established in 2011.
  
• Grant Thornton UK appoints Kevin Martin as a partner. Martin, formerly of EY, advises financial services clients on many complex indirect tax issues, including Brexit restructuring, agreeing PESMs, disposals and acquisitions, HMRC disputes, cross-border transactions and relocation/market entry complexities. In his new role, he will lead the firm’s indirect tax financial services advisory practice. 
• Jon Preshaw Tax Ltd appoints Ben Proctor as associate tax dispute director. Proctor, who joins from Grant Thornton, has 20 years’ expertise and experience across the tax disputes field.
• Natalie Gray, formerly of Quintain Ltd, moves to Barratt Developments PLC as group tax director with effect from 17 July.
• Landau Baker Ltd chartered accountants merges with BKL. Landau Baker’s team of 20+ people will move into the BKL office in Finchley and will continue trading under the Landau Baker name.

26 June 2023

• Scrutton Bland appoints Paul Harris as a private client tax partner. Harris, formerly of RSM, specialises in providing advice on capital taxes and wealth management for high-net-worth individuals, their families and their related entities, and has particular expertise in agriculture and landed estates.

19 June 2023

• Boodle Hatfield appoints corporate tax specialist Andrew Loan as partner in the firm’s private client & tax department. Loan, formerly of Fieldfisher, has over 20 years' experience advising on a variety of corporate tax and VAT matters, particularly taxation issues in the context of acquisitions and disposals of public and private companies, and the taxation of corporate groups, finance, real estate and investment funds, and tax investigations and disputes.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints indirect tax specialist Joe Francis as a director in its VAT and customs team. Francis, who will be based in the firm’s Southampton and Poole offices, has 20 years’ experience in taxation, specialising in indirect taxes. He joins from Grant Thornton.
• PKF Smith Cooper appoints Katie Dziewulski as employment tax manager. She joins the firm from Gymshark.
• Cowgills appoints Paul Cresswell as corporate tax manager, Anthony Seddon as a trust assistant tax manager and Graham Bevan as tax manager. Cresswell joins the firm from Azets, Seddon from Blick Rothenberg and Bevan from Rathbones.

12 June 2023

• Shakespeare Martineau appoints tax specialist Huw Witty as a partner in its London corporate team. Witty, formerly of Ince Gordon Dadds, has almost 40 years’ experience advising on all areas of taxation, including property, international and corporate finance tax, as well as the taxation of HNWIs and tax litigation.
• Irwin Mitchell appoints Matthew Briggs as a partner in its high net worth and international tax team in London. Briggs specialises in personal tax, estate and succession planning for UK and international individuals and families. He joins the firm from The Burnside Partnership.

6 June 2023

• Stewarts appoints Matthew Greene as partner in the firm’s tax disputes team. Greene has over 15 years’ experience in tax dispute resolution across all taxes and corporate tax in particular. He joins the firm from Osborne Clark, and re-joins David Pickstone, the two having worked together at PwC. 
• Deloitte in the UK promotes 101 people to partner. Of the new promotions, 23 are from the firm’s tax & legal business. Among them are Annis Lampard who leads the firms’ tax controversy practice for private clients and companies; Tammy Arends (tax controversy) and Jamie Bedford (transfer pricing).
• Asset finance brokerage Approved Finance Group launches Approved Tax Ltd, a specialist tax advisory to support SMEs with innovative funding solutions.
• Payne Hicks Beach promotes Melissa Solly and Benedict Jennings to partners in the private client team. Both provide accounting and tax advisory services to clients including high net worth individuals as well as onshore and offshore trustees.
• Simmons Gainsford appoints VAT specialist Rhys Pippard as partner. Pippard has twenty years’ experience advising on all areas of VAT, especially resolving contentious matters with HMRC. Before joining the firm he managed his own consultancy and prior to that was head of indirect tax at Hazlewoods.

30 May 2023

• Evelyn Partners appoints Rajat Nayyar as a tax director in the firm’s Newcastle office. Nayyar has over 15 years’ experience advising clients on a broad range of tax issues and works with a wide range of businesses from start-ups to large multinational business. He joins Evelyn Partners from PwC.
• EY appoints two Elizabeth Armstrong and Aran Mustafa as partners in its insurance business. Armstrong, formerly head of tax at Royal London, will lead a team to support UK insurance clients with global tax compliance and reporting activity. She has 20 years tax industry experience with expertise in complex taxation structuring and will be based in the firm’s Manchester office. Mustafa, formerly of KPMG, will lead the firm’s specialty insurance tax practice and will be based in London.

22 May 2023

• Law firms Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling have announced plans to merge. The merger, which is subject to partner votes, would create a new firm known as A&O Shearman with annual revenues of £3.4bn. Shearman abandoned merger talks with Hogan Lovells earlier this year. 
• Among the winners at this year’s Tolley’s Taxation Awards are: Heather Self, consultant at Blick Rothenberg, for lifetime contribution; Dan Neidle, of Tax Policy Associates , for outstanding contribution to taxation in 2022/23; Skadden for best international tax team; Taylor Wessing for best corporate/business tax practice; IHG Hotels & Resorts for best in-house tax team; Eversheds Sutherland for best VAT/indirect tax team; Harbottle & Lewis for best private client tax practice; KPMG Law for best tax disputes/investigations team; Allegro Tax for best new tax practice; and BKL for best employer in tax.
  
• KPMG promotes Nick Pheasey to UK head of family office and private client. Pheasey, who has been at the firm since 2002, specialises in tax matters related to ultra-high net wealth individuals and their families.

15 May 2023

• Gowling WLG appoints Matthew Poole and Paul Shaw as partners in the firm’s UK tax practice. Poole and Shaw are corporate tax specialists experienced in acting for a broad range of clients, including major institutions and private capital and in their new role will focus on complex multi-disciplinary transactions in the real estate sector. Both join the firm from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
• Advisory firm Johnston Carmichael appoints international tax director, Amanda Collinson. Collinson, formerly EMEA tax manager at Vontier, will advise on specialist international tax areas, including corporate tax considerations when setting up overseas or restructuring existing international companies, transfer pricing strategy and documentation, as well as the impact of EU Directives on cross-border tax arrangements.
• Fieldfisher appoints Cristiana Bulbuc as a senior associate in the firm’s contentious tax team. Bulbuc joins the firm from EY.
• Slaughter and May promotes Tanja Velling to tax PSL counsel.
• Pinsent Masons promotes corporate tax specialist Andrew McCarthy to partner. McCarthy is based in the firm’s Leeds office.
• Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PSC) have begun their first strike action at HMRC sites in Newcastle and East Kilbride. The strike will affect helplines including the HMRC employer helpline, construction industry scheme, the student loans unit, PAYE registrations, maternity, paternity and sick pay. The strikes are scheduled for 18 days with further action planned on 15-19, 22-26, 29-31 May and on 1 and 2 June.

9 May 2023

• The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) has announced its team of officers for 2023/24. Current CIOT deputy president Gary Ashford, partner at law firm Harbottle & Lewis, will become president, succeeding Susan Ball. Charlotte Barbour, director of regulatory authorisations at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) and a former ICAS director of taxation, becomes the deputy president. Nichola Ross Martin, managing director of Ross Martin Tax Consultancy Ltd, becomes vice-president. The appointments were formally approved by the CIOT’s council earlier this year and the three will take up their new roles on 30 May at the institute’s annual general meeting.
• Mazars appoints Gabriel Fuenmayor to the newly created role of transfer pricing partner based in London. Fuenmayor has over 20 years’ experience in the industry, working both in the UK and internationally. He joins the firm from BDO.
• UHY Hacker Young promotes Nikhil Oza as partner in the firm’s London office. Oza is a corporate tax specialist and works with a broad range of clients but has particular expertise within the tech sector, from startups to well-established businesses.

2 May 2023

• Alvarez & Marsal Taxand appoints investment fund tax specialist Rhys Owen as a managing director based in London. Rhys, formerly a partner at EY, has 13 years' experience in UK and international taxation, advising investors and the managers of alternative investment funds on the tax aspects of fund structuring, carried interest and co-investment arrangements, fund manager corporate group matters and UK and cross-border investment structuring.
• Allen & Overy promotes Esther Lemmon to tax partner, with effect from 1 May 2023. Lemmon has extensive experience across the full range of domestic and international financing transactions including the taxation of securitisations, CLOs, leveraged finance transactions, bond issuances, repos and derivatives. The firm also promotes Naomi Lawton to PSL counsel in Allen & Overy’s tax group. Lawton has extensive UK corporate tax experience, and has advised on a full range of corporate transactions, funds and asset management structures, restructurings, reorganisations, finance and real estate transactions, as well as domestic and global tax policy issues.
• DLA Piper promotes transfer pricing specialist Rachit Agarwal to partner in the firm’s London office.
• Burges Salmon appoints Gillian Griffiths as a director in its corporate tax team. Griffiths, formerly of Deloitte, has extensive experience of the financial services sector and with advising alternative asset managers.
• Azets acquires Naylor Wintersgill, an independent firm of chartered accountants, business and tax advisors, based in Yorkshire. Naylor Wintersgill, which will rebrand as Azets with immediate effect, delivers accounting, audit, corporate finance, tax, payroll, and HR advisory services to SMEs, private clients, and not-for-profit organisations. The acquisition is Azets’ eleventh in 12 months.
• The CIOT appoints Ellen Milner as director of public policy following John Cullinane’s retirement. Milner joins from HMRC where she held several senior roles, most recently as deputy director for large business London.  

24 April 2023

• Penningtons Manches Cooper appoints tax partner Oliver Gutman. Gutman, formerly of Shakespeare Martineau, has more than 20 years’ experience advising large corporates, investment funds, owner-managed businesses, and individuals on a range of tax issues. 
• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer promotes Alison Dickie to counsel. Her practice covers all aspects of corporate taxation, with a particular focus on corporate and real estate transactions and also indirect taxes.
• ForrestBrown appoints capital allowances specialist Peter Reynolds. Reynolds, formerly of RSM, has 20 years’ experience advising FTSE100 companies on fixed asset management and commercial property tax relief.

17 April 2023

• Eversheds Sutherland promotes Helen Mackey and Charlotte Stodell to tax partner in the firm’s company commercial practice group, with effect from 1 May 2023. Mackey specialises in corporate tax, advising on a broad range of transactions including public and private M&A, restructurings, refinancings, and IPOs and capital raisings. Stodell has particular experience in real estate tax and VAT. She also advises on corporate and finance transactions including contentious tax matters. Both are based in London.
• Macfarlanes promotes Sarah Shucksmith to partner with effect from 1 May 2023. Shucksmith specialises in all aspects of real estate fund taxation, including fundraising (representing both funds and investors) and advising on equity investments into real estate.
• The Ince Group will reportedly enter administration after a protracted auditing process meant it has still not published its financial results for the year ended 31 March 2022. The firm employed over 700 staff and had revenues of over £100m in the year to March 2021.
• EY has called off its plan to break up its auditing and consulting divisions, after US partners reportedly rejected the proposal.
• HURST promotes James Thompson to partner. He provides tax advice to family and owner-managed businesses and is a specialist in research and development tax credits.
• Alvarez & Marsal Taxand appoints funds and transaction tax specialist Joe Macklin-Gray as a senior director based in London. Macklin-Gray, formerly of Deloitte, has over 19 years' experience in UK and international taxation, advising investors and the managers of alternative investment funds on the tax aspects of fund structuring, carried interest and co-investment arrangements, fund manager corporate group matters and UK and cross-border investment structuring.
• CMS promotes Philip Reid to partner in the firm’s tax department.
• PKF Littlejohn appoints Farhan Azeem as a transfer pricing director. Azeem, formerly of PwC Singapore, has significant experience of advising large multinational companies listed in London and on other major stock exchanges. He has also worked with complex private equity, owner-managed and start-up businesses seeking practical tax advice. 

11 April 2023

• Price Bailey appoints tax investigation specialist Andrew Park as a new partner in the firm’s tax team. Park, formerly of BDO, has over 20 years’ experience in large-scale tax enquiries and investigations. He has particular expertise in complex UK tax investigations involving entities, parties, and assets in multiple overseas jurisdictions.
• RSM promotes the following to partner in the firm’s national tax practice: Duncan Beckwith (corporate tax), Constantine Costas (corporate tax), Tom Gilbert (VAT), David McDonnell (VAT) and Julie Moore (employer solutions).
• haysmacintyre promotes Danielle Ford and Mark Baycroft to partner. Ford is a specialist in tax disputes and resolutions and has over 20 years’ experience advising businesses and individuals on their tax affairs. She is head of haysmacintyre’s tax disputes & resolutions team. Baycroft specialises in tax advice to owner managed businesses and their shareholders and directors across all sectors. He is particularly interested in reorganisations and reconstructions and property taxes.
• Crowe promotes Paul Cox and Kieran Smith to partner. Cox is a corporate tax specialist with nearly 20 years’ experience. Smith is a VAT and customs duty specialist with a particular focus on consulting in the not-for-profit sector.
• PKF Smith Cooper appoints Dean Castledine to the new role of private client director. Castledine has 20 years’ experience and expertise in private client tax advisory services. He joins the firm from Shorts Chartered Accountants.

3 April 2023

• Linklaters promotes Sam Lintonbon and Rhian Parker to partner in the firm’s London office, effective 1 May 2023. Lintonbon specialises in corporate, finance, structuring and contentious transactions with a particular focus on public and private M&A, complex financings (including securitisations), corporate reconstructions, and insolvencies. Parker has a broad tax practice which includes M&A, reorganisations and advisory tax work. She specialises in tax for financial institutions and corporates, covering both corporate and finance transactions, as well as heading up the real estate tax practice. The firm also promotes Alexander Goldsmith to counsel in the firm’s tax department.
• Fried Frank promotes Richard Pilgrim to partner in the firm’s London tax group. Pilgrim advises clients on a broad range of tax matters, including public and private mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, corporate restructurings, financings and capital markets transactions, real estate deals, and fund formation and structuring.
• BDO appoints UK head of private client, Paul Ayres, as the new chair of the firm’s global private client services. Ayres has been a partner in the firm for 17 years and advises on all private client tax matters. In his new role Ayres will work with regional heads in the Americas, Europe and Asia to formulate and deliver BDO’s priorities for its private client service offering.
• Saffery Champness promotes Casidhe Baleri, Hilary Clelland, Kathy Johnson and Sean Watts to partner. Baleri specialises in providing advice and support to a range of clients from not-for-profit entities to landed estates and corporate businesses. Clelland leads the firm’s corporate tax offering in the Inverness office and supports the national team with corporation tax compliance services. Johnson specialises in advising individuals and organisations active in all areas of sport, TV, film, theatre and music on tax compliance and mitigation. Watts has over 20 years’ experience of advising businesses and their owners on their tax affairs.
• BKL promotes Sam Inkersole to senior manager, tax consultancy. Inkersole specialises in the tax implications of trading and transferring cryptocurrencies and NFTs for both individuals and corporates. He also has expertise in wealth structuring, including in family investment companies (FICs) and other tax-efficient ways of preserving and passing on family wealth.
• RSM promotes corporate tax partner Sheetal Sanghvi as the firm’s new office managing partner in Nottingham. Sanghvi is head of innovation reliefs in the central region. She has extensive experience in advising a range of businesses, from start-ups to large corporates, across a range of sectors in making significant R&D and patent box claims.
• Evelyn Partners appoints Owen Burn as a VAT director in its Bristol office. Burn joins the firm from PwC.

27 March 2023

• Slaughter and May promotes Sarah Osprey to partner with effect from 1 May 2023. Osprey advises a wide range of domestic and overseas clients on all aspects of UK corporate tax law, including with respect to mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance transactions and disputes with HMRC.
• Lubbock Fine appoints Shaharan Deen as tax director and Sharon Parker as senior VAT manager. Deen, formerly of PKF Littlejohn, has nearly 20 years’ experience advising clients on personal, trust, and estate tax matters. Parker, formerly of Moore Kingston Smith, specialises in VAT planning, compliance reviews, advising on complex VAT liability and place of supply issues and negotiations with HMRC.
• Alvarez & Marsal Taxand appoints indirect tax specialist Mark McKay as a managing director based in London. McKay, formerly of PwC, has over 17 years’ experience advising clients on indirect taxes, focusing on the funds and financial services sector.
• Azets appoints Laura Duggan as a tax partner, based in Manchester. Duggan has 20 years’ experience advising UK owner managed businesses and their shareholders on a range of tax planning, incentives, and reliefs. She joins the firm from R&D Tax Solutions Ltd.

20 March 2023

• Osborne Clarke appoints private wealth specialist Patrick Wooddisse as partner in its Bristol office. Wooddisse has more than 20 years' experience advising on domestic and international tax planning, intergenerational succession and the establishment and operation of trusts, with a particular specialism in advising families with a US connection. He also advises on the creation and administration of charities. Wooddisse joins the firm from TLT.
• RSM appoints Mark Edeson as tax director. Edeson, formerly of EY, has over 20 years’ experience working with a large portfolio of  national and international clients. In his new role he will advise businesses across a broad range of sectors and will be based at RSM in Hull.
• Vijay Shah, formerly of Amazon,  joins Convera as global head of indirect tax.

13 March 2023

• Moore Kingston Smith is to receive external investment from European private equity firm Waterland to fund a growth and expansion programme.
• The Financial Times, among others, reports that EY has ‘paused’ its plan to split in two amid a dispute concerning how much of its tax business should stay with the audit side of the firm.
• Morgan Lewis opens a Munich office with a team of 20 lawyers from Shearman & Sterling. Partner Jann Jetter will lead the tax advisory practice, which has a focus on post-deal reorganisations and integrations, as well as tax-orientated structuring of private equity funds and private equity transactions.

6 March 2023

• KPMG appoints tax litigations specialist Lee Ellis as a partner. Ellis joins the firm from Stewarts.  
• Saffery Champness appoints James Stevens as partner. Stevens, formerly of Deloitte, advises high and ultra-high net worth families.
• Allen & Overy appoints Brin Rajathurai, formerly of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, as PSL counsel, Europe.
• PwC appoints Victor Cramer as a director. Cramer, formerly of Stewarts, specialises in complex and high value tax disputes.
• Albert Goodman appoints two managers within their tax team, Lauren Chadwick and Julie Harding. Both join the firm from Evelyn Partners.
• Azets acquires Baker Tilly Ireland, which will rebrand as Azets Ireland with immediate effect.
• UHY Hacker Young reappoints Subarna Banerjee as managing partner of its London and Nottingham firm following a successful three-year period in the role.

27 February 2023

• Kingsley Napley launches a tax disputes and investigations practice with the appointment of new partner Waqar Shah. Shah acts for high-net worth individuals and corporate clients across multiple sectors on a range of HMRC disputes and investigations. He joins from Mishcon de Reya LLP where he became a partner in 2021.
• RSM UK appoints Dave Bateman as associate director, VAT. Bateman joins the firm from Asahi International Ltd where he was head of tax.
• Jason Jenner, formerly of GlaxoSmithKline, moves to BP as vice president, tax planning.
• Jack Sharville, formerly head of tax at Wickes, moves to IKEA as head of tax for UK and Ireland (country tax manager).

20 February 2023

• Watson Farley & Williams appoints Claire Miles as a partner in its tax team. Miles, formerly of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, has substantial experience providing tax advice and planning across corporate reorganisations, mergers and acquisitions, investment funds and disputes.
• RSM UK appoints Nick Wilson as a partner within its corporate tax team in Guildford. Wilson, formerly of EY, has over 18 years’ broad tax experience and specialises in assisting large corporate multinational businesses with their corporate tax compliance and tax accounting. 

13 February 2023

• Irwin Mitchell appoints a four-strong tax team from Knights. Kate Featherstone will lead the tax team at Irwin Mitchell and will be based in the firm’s Birmingham office. Featherstone is experienced in a wide range of corporate transactions and specialises in the tax aspects of domestic and cross-border M&A. She is joined by her three senior associates from Knights: Jade Edgar, James Arnold and Eve Williams. Also based in Birmingham, Jennie Newton joins Irwin Mitchell from Wright Hassell. Newton has over 20 years’ tax experience, advising individuals, partnerships and corporates on the personal and business tax implications of their property transactions.
• Max Schofield, formerly of 3PB Barristers, joins Devereux Chambers. Schofield, a specialist indirect tax barrister, has been instructed to advise and appear on a broad range of tax cases concerning VAT, SDLT, customs and excise duties. He has represented clients in the tribunals, high court, and court of justice of the European Union

3 February 2023

• White & Case appoints Jessica Kemp as a partner in the firm’s tax practice. Kemp’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, advising on transactional, structural and incentive-based issues. She also provides ongoing advice on enquiries and disputes. Kemp joins the firm from Travers Smith.  
• Specialist tax firm Andersen appoints Des Hanna as director in its international tax group. Hanna has over 20 years' tax experience advising on UK and international tax issues. He joins the firm from Hanna & Hanna.
• Interpath Advisory appoints Emma Baylis as managing director in its tax advisory practice. Baylis has over 25 years’ tax experience, including 21 years at KPMG where she held a number of leadership roles in the firm’s tax business. She has advised clients in a range of sectors, both in the UK and globally. Most recently she has been a senior policy adviser to HM Treasury at the Office of Tax Simplification.
• Farrer & Co elects Jeremy Gordon as its new senior partner. Previously head of the disputes team, Gordon will be formally appointed on 1 May 2023. Gordon joined the firm in 1989 and is a leading expert in contentious trusts & estates.
• Burges Salmon promotes Suzanna Harvey as the new head of its private wealth sector. Harvey specialises in tax, trusts, immigration and estate planning for international clients (both UK resident and non-resident) and provides tax advice to a wide range of clients, from ultra-high net worth individuals to leading private banks and other financial institutions. She has wide-ranging experience of advising non-UK domiciliaries on the income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax implications of UK residence.
• Gateley Legal promotes partner Sean Williams as national head of private wealth. Williams is an expert in estate and succession planning, acting for high net worth individuals, ultra-high net worth individuals and not-for-profit organisations. In addition the firm also promotes partner Ravi Francis as head of private wealth in London. Francis has over 14 years of experience in providing tailored tax and legal advice to professional fiduciaries, wealthy individuals and their advisers.

30 January 2023

• Azets appoints Sajid Ghufoor as its national director of tax investigations and dispute resolution. Ghufoor, who is based at Azets’ London Bridge office, joins from Mazars. He previously spent 27 years at HMRC, including nine as a senior investigator at the fraud investigation service.
• BakerTilly Mooney Moore appoints Neil Armstrong as tax director in its Belfast office. Armstrong has over 25 years' tax advisory experience in Northern Ireland, advising high net worth individuals on all areas of taxation. He joins the firm from GMcG Chartered Accountants.
• Macfarlanes reappoints Sebastian Prichard Jones as senior partner for a second term. He first took on the post in 2020, replacing Charles Martin. Prichard Jones specialises in advising wealthy families on tax and succession issues.
• Kreston Reeves appoints Michael Haig as a director and James O’Leary joins as a corporate tax senior manager. Haig, formerly of Gravita, has expertise in the corporate tax aspects of restructuring and reorganisations, international tax and exit strategies. O’Leary also acts for owner-managed and property businesses and brings expertise in R&D tax credits, capital allowances, and tax-efficient employee incentive schemes. 

23 January 2023

• Crowe appoints Peter Fairchild, a specialist advisor to sports and entertainment clients, as partner in its private clients team. Fairchild, formerly of Evelyn Partners, has more than 30 years’ experience in the private client sector, working with sportspeople as well as clients in media and entertainment industry. He also advises entrepreneurs, family offices, non-UK domiciled individuals and professional practices.
• Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati appoints tax specialist Sarah Lane as a partner in the firm’s London office. Lane, formerly of Simpson Thacher, has a broad range of tax experience, having advised clients on UK, cross-border, and international tax matters, including venture capital, M&A, private equity, and fund formation transactions as well as financial restructurings and tax issues related to cross border financing. Wilson Sonsini launched its London office in 2018 and now has 38 London-based US, UK and dual US/UK-qualified attorneys, including 11 partners.
• Ashfords appoints John Pindard as tax partner. Pindard, formerly of Foot Anstey, advises clients on corporate tax matters across M&A, restructurings and reorganisations as well as supporting entrepreneurs on the tax implications of their investments, acquisitions and disposals.  He also advises on property tax matters across VAT, SDLT and taxes arising from property acquisitions, disposals and leases. 

18 January 2023

• The OECD appoints Manal Corwin as director of its Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTPA), with effect from 3 April. Corwin will lead the work of the centre across all areas, including the two-pillar solution to the tax challenges of digitalisation, BEPS, the tax transparency agenda, and the centre’s participation in the OECD’s new inclusive forum on carbon mitigation approaches. Corwin has previously held senior tax policy positions in two separate US administrations and has served as a delegate and then vice chair of the OECD committee on fiscal affairs and as delegate to the global forum on tax and transparency. She currently serves as partner-in-charge of the national tax office for KPMG in the US. Corwin’s appointment follows the recent departure of Pascal Saint-Amans as director of CTPA after 12 years in the role and the statutory retirement of former deputy director and current director of the Centre, Grace Perez-Navarro on 31 March. David Bradbury, the former head of the OECD’s Tax Policy and Statistics Division, and Achim Pross, former head of the OECD International Co-operation and Tax Administration Division, are appointed as deputy directors of the Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.
• Albert Goodman appoints Ruth Powell as a director in its tax team. Powell, formerly of Evelyn Partners, has 25 years’ experience advising private clients on all aspects of trusts and estates, including tax advisory, administration and compliance. She will be based in Bristol.
• The minister for finance and local government in Wales, Rebecca Evans, appoints Ruth Glazzard as the next chair of the Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA). The WRA currently manages two devolved taxes, land transaction tax and landfill disposals tax, on behalf of the Welsh government.
• Mazars appoints Hina Desai as partner in its private client team within the group’s East Midlands operation. Desai joins from abrdn and brings more than 25 years’ experience in client advisory services. Mazars also promotes Sue Kukadia to the role of partner in its tax team, specialising in immigration.

13 January 2023

• KPMG UK appoints Stuart Bedford as its new UK head of law. Bedford, formerly a corporate partner at Linklaters, will commence his new role from April 2023.
• KPMG also appoints Lee Holloway as tax partner in the international & complex team, based in London. He joins the firm from Grant Thornton.
• Akin Gump promotes Matthew Durward-Thomas to partner. Durward-Thomas advises clients on a broad range of corporate tax matters, including financial restructurings, investments funds, and domestic and international corporate and finance transactions. In particular, he has significant experience advising on complex, multijurisdictional restructurings.
• Tax barristers Michael Thomas of Pump Court Tax Chambers and John Brinsmead-Stockham of 11 New Square are to be appointed to King’s Counsel.
• UHY Hacker Young promotes tax specialist Sarah Whalley to partner, based in Manchester. Her expertise includes advising owner-managed businesses, partnerships, high net worth individuals, including non-domiciliaries and trusts. 
• Evelyn Partners appoints Jonathan Balcombe as a partner in its business tax team. In his new role, Balcombe, formerly of EY, will focus on providing tax advice for private equity-backed companies and their stakeholders.
• Fieldfisher appoints Tom O'Reilly as an associate in the firm’s contentious tax team. He joins the firm from Joseph Hage Aaronson.
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges promotes corporate tax specialist Eithne Bloice-Sanders to counsel in the firm’s tax team.
• Deloitte appoints tax dispute resolution specialist Paul Dennis as partner based in the firm’s Birmingham office. He joins the firm from EY.
• RSM appoints Andy Beaves as VAT partner based in Manchester. Beaves specialises in supporting consumer orientated businesses such as those operating in retail, hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism and joins the firm from Deloitte. RSM also appoints James Hemphill as employment taxes partner in its employer solutions team. Hemphill, formerly of EY, will be based in RSM’s Birmingham office. He has extensive experience advising on all aspects of UK employment taxes.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints VAT specialist Marianne Hawksworth as senior manager in the firm’s Salisbury office. She joins the firm from Old Mill.
• Babcock International Group appoints Sue Wilton as head of indirect tax. She joins the company from SC Johnson.
• Johnston Carmichael appoints Amanda Collinson as international tax director, based in the firm’s Edinburgh office. Collinson formerly held an in-house role at Vontier.
• BDO appoints Michael Pape as director in the firm’s tax dispute resolution team. He joins the firm from Deloitte.
• Old Mill appoints tax specialist David Gage as partner and head of VAT. He joins the firm from Evelyn Partners.

13 December 2022

• Fiona Phillips, tax partner at Andrew Jackson Solicitors, is appointed a member of the GAAR independent advisory panel. Philips will undertake the unpaid appointment for a three-year period alongside her role at the firm. Philips has more than 30 years’ experience advising and guiding private and public companies through all aspects of their corporate tax affairs. She has a special interest in advising property clients on SDLT  and VAT.
• Burness Paull appoints tax specialist Christine Yuill as a partner based in Glasgow. Yuill, formerly of Pinsent Masons, will advise the firm’s UK and international clients on the full spectrum of tax issues, including the tax aspects of corporate transactions, tax structuring advice for management and the impacts of share sales and acquisitions for management shareholders, property tax advice, employee share plans and employee benefit trust advice, and employment tax advice.
• HW Fisher promotes Sam Dewes to director in the firm’s private client department. Dewes advises UK and international high net worth individuals, corporates and trusts, assisting clients on a range of tax matters including moving in/out of the UK, succession planning, land and property issues, investments into UK businesses, and clients’ UK tax filing obligations.
• KPMG promotes Phil Roper to partner in the tax and legal division. Roper assists multinational businesses with setting up transfer pricing policies and handling tax authority disputes. He is also the national lead for quality in transfer pricing arrangements.

7 December 2022

• Evelyn Partners appoints three new partners to its tax team. Alistair Nichol joins as a partner specialising in technical tax and transactions, Jayne Harrold as a partner focusing on environment tax and Laura Hayward as a private client tax partner. Nichol, formerly of Lloyd's of London, has 18 years' experience advising on tax in the financial services sector. His practice spans tax advisory and transactions, both UK-focused and international. Harrold joins Evelyn Partners’ from PwC. She leads and manages multi-territory projects delivering plastic packaging tax and other environmental tax advice. Hayward has extensive experience of providing tax planning services to private individuals and has worked in this area for over 16 years. She joins the firm from BDO.
• Johnston Carmichael appoints Aileen Scott as a corporate tax partner. Scott, formerly head of tax (Scotland) at Azets, specialises in supporting owner-managed businesses and partnerships of all sizes, advising on M&A, investments and disposals. She will be based in the Glasgow office but will be working nationally.
• Baker Tilly International appoints Chris Johnson as the new head of tax with immediate effect. Based in Plano, Texas, Johnson has been a partner at Baker Tilly US since 2006 and has 30 years of experience advising clients on federal, state and international tax matters.
• Old Mill promotes corporate tax specialist Stephen Martin to partner. Martin’s expertise covers a broad range of sectors, but focusses primarily on domestic tax advice on a corporate and shareholder level, primarily for owner-managed businesses. 

28 November 2022

• Moore Kingston Smith appoints Leigh Collins as a tax partner in the firm’s entrepreneurial tax team. Collins, formerly of EY Frank Hirth, has over 25 years’ experience advising entrepreneurial businesses, from start-ups through to exit and sale.
• Payne Hicks Beach appoints Sara Morgan as a partner in the private client team. Morgan, formerly of Fieldfisher, advises on personal taxation, trust and estate planning for high net worth and ultra high net worth individuals and trustees, particularly where there is an international dimension.   
• David Murphy joins BSI Group as interim director of tax. He was previously director of tax at PageGroup Plc.
• KPMG appoints Amy Manchia as a partner in the firm’s real estate and alternative funds tax practice. Manchia, formerly of EY, has over 20 years’ experience advising on real estate, private equity and infrastructure funds across the entire fund lifecycle.
• Deloitte appoints Tom Jarvis as an M&A partner in the firm’s financial investors tax team. Jarvis, formerly of  Watson Farley & Williams, will focus on advising infrastructure funds and institutional investors, advising a wide range of clients on all aspects of transactions.
• BDO appoints Chris Rowe a tax partner, specialising in VAT. He joins from EY and will be based in Birmingham.
• Accountancy firm Saffery Champness appoints Shirley McIntosh MBE as a partner in its Inverness office. McIntosh joins the firm from RSM, where she was a partner and formerly head of tax for Scotland and Northern Ireland. She has a wide range of experience in advising HNW clients on their tax affairs, landed estates and family businesses on the CGT and IHT processes, and trusts. McIntosh won gold and silver medals in shooting at the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and was awarded an MBE in the 1995 New Year’s honours for services to the sport.

18 November 2022

• Travers Smith elects Kathleen Russ as senior partner for a second term, with effect from 1 July 2023. Russ was first elected in 2019, having been a partner in the tax department since 2001, and head of the tax department from 2007 to 2017.
  
• Travers Smith appoints Kyle Rainsford as a senior associate in the firm’s tax team. Rainsford, who joins the firm from Norton Rose Fulbright, advises on all aspects of UK corporate and real estate tax and has particular expertise in advising institutional real estate investors.
• Taylor Wessing appoints Michelle Williamson as senior counsel - knowledge lawyer in the firm’s tax & incentives group. Williamson, previously a senior professional support lawyer at the firm, has more than 20 years' experience in corporate tax law.

14 November 2022

• Harriett Baldwin MP has been elected chair of the Treasury Committee, replacing Mel Stride MP following his appointment as secretary of state for work and pensions. Baldwin previously served as economic secretary to the Treasury (City minister) from May 2015 until July 2016. Prior to becoming an MP, she had a 20 year career in finance, specialising in currency markets for pension funds.
• Gately Legal appoints Tom Le Santo as a senior tax manager and Manoj Synghal as a tax consultant joining the firm’s newly launched private client service for high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals . Le Santo joins from Evelyn Partners and Synghal from EY Frank Hirth. Both will be based at Gateley’s London office.
  
• BDO promotes 33 new partners across its tax, audit, advisory and operational teams, taking BDO’s partnership to a total of 428. The promotions include ten people in BDO’s tax team: Sarah Beever, Sam Boundy , Matthew Glover, Richard Hogg, Claire Hudson , Aditi Hyett , Kamal Kataria , Martyne Pearson , Karen Riley and Nathan Thomas . 
• Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner promotes Andy West to partner based in the firm’s London office, effective 1 January 2023. West has experience in all areas of corporate taxation in the UK, with a focus on real estate tax. 

8 November 2022

• Former Freshfields tax partner Dame Sarah Falk is appointed as a Lady Justice of Appeal in the Court of Appeal. Dame Falk became a partner at Freshfields in 1994, advising on all aspects of corporate tax strategy. She retired from the partnership in 2013. In 2018, she became one of only three solicitors to be appointed directly to the High Court bench from private practice, and the first woman to do so.
  
• Joseph Hage Aaronson promotes Helen McGhee to partner. McGhee specialises in UK and international tax disputes and she advises both individuals and corporates.
  
• Tariva Thomas joins Fieldfisher’s contentious tax team in Birmingham as a senior associate. Thomas joins from Wright Hassall. She is Fieldfisher’s third hire in Birmingham in 18 months.
• Farrer & Co appoints Jennifer Ridgway as a partner the firm’s private client team. Ridgway, formerly of Michelmores, advises ultra-high net worth individuals both in the UK and internationally.
• Proskauer promotes Richard Miller to partner in the firm’s tax department. Miller provides advice on a full range of UK and international tax matters. His practice specifically focuses on all aspects of the private fund lifecycle. He is based in London.
• Kingsley Napley launches its landed estate practice with the appointment of Charles Richardson as partner. Richardson joins from Hunters Law. In addition to an established general private client practice, he provides specialist advice on the tax and succession planning issues that arise around landed estates and inherited wealth.
  
• Jayne Harrold joins Evelyn Partners as a partner to build its environmental tax practice. Harrold joins the firm from PwC, where she was a director and UK indirect environmental tax leader.
• PwC promotes its former director Caroline Brooks to head of its UK environmental taxes practice.

2 November 2022

• Victoria Atkins MP is appointed financial secretary to the Treasury responsible for tax policy and customs. She was previously minister of state at the ministry of justice and was formerly a criminal barrister specialising in prosecuting serious organised crime. She replaces Andrew Griffith MP who has been appointed economic secretary to the Treasury. John Glen MP is appointed chief secretary to the Treasury. He was minister of state (economic secretary) to the Treasury between September 2021 and July 2022. The appointment of Mel Stride as Work and Pensions Secretary means a new chair of the Treasury Committee is needed.
• Maurice Turnor Gardner appoints Fiona Poole as head of private wealth as of 1 November 2022. Poole has been a partner at MTG since 2017, having been the firm’s first lateral hire in 2010 following its demerger from Allen & Overy in 2009.
• BDO Global appoints Robert O’Hare as tax policy director. O’Hare is a corporate tax expert with specialist knowledge of UK and cross-border corporate acquisitions, financing transactions, and private equity and retail investment funds. He joins the firm from Squire Patton Boggs.
• DLA Piper appoints Keunyoung Oh as a partner in its London tax team. Keunyoung, formerly of Baker McKenzie is a tax adviser with 13 years’ technical corporate tax experience, specialising in leading complex international corporate reorganization (ICR) projects.
• Boodle Hatfield elects Andrea Zavos as its new senior partner, as of 1 May 2023. Zavos is head of the private client and tax team and has been with the firm since 2014. She will maintain her contentious trusts and estates practice in addition to her new role.
• Stevens & Bolton appoints Sarah Cardew as a partner in its corporate tax and incentives practice. Cardew, formerly of Irwin Mitchell, has extensive experience across corporate, real estate and commercial tax.

24 October 2022

• FTI Consulting appoints Emma Donnelly as a senior managing director in the firm’s tax practice in London. Donnelly, formerly of PwC, has more than 20 years’ experience supporting clients with corporate tax advisory, international tax and transfer pricing. She advises on transfer pricing arrangements, the implementation of tax effective models and transfer pricing disputes.
• KPMG in the UK promotes 108 new partners, 7 associate partners and 227 directors. An additional 47 partners were hired into the business in the last year. Of the partner promotions and new hires, 33 are in the firm’s in tax and legal team.
• Azets appoints Melanie Prestwich as a corporate tax partner based in the firm’s London office. Prestwich has 26 years’ experience providing tax advice in complex matters for clients including family and OMBs and their associated private individuals. She joins the firm from HW Fisher.
• Evelyn Partners appoints Matt Hughes as private client tax partner based in the firm’s Birmingham office. Hughes, formerly of PwC, will focus on advising private clients, private businesses and their owners on commercial and tax issues. He has a particular expertise in helping private business owners navigate exit or other restructuring events.
• Transatlantic law firm Womble Bond Dickinson and UK based law firm BDB Pitmans confirm they are in early discussions around a potential merger. As discussions are ongoing, both firms have no further information to share at this time. 

17 October 2022

• Jeremy Hunt MP is appointed as chancellor of the exchequer, replacing Kwasi Kwarteng MP. Hunt served as secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs from 9 July 2018 to 24 July 2019. He was elected Conservative MP for South West Surrey in May 2005. In addition, Edward Argar MP replaces Chris Philp MP as chief secretary to the Treasury.
• Proskauer appoints Frazer Money as a partner in its tax practice. Money has extensive experience advising businesses on a wide range of tax matters.  He has particular experience in advising asset managers on tax and structuring issues relating to their funds, management businesses, remuneration packages and investment transactions as well as GP and LP-led secondaries and GP minority transactions. He also has a wide range of experience advising on the tax aspects of complex credit transactions and cross-border restructurings. He joins the firm from Kirkland & Ellis and will be based in the London office.
• Glasgow based Consilium Chartered Accountants appoints personal tax specialist Anne McCulloch as senior tax manager. She joins the firm from RSM.
• HMRC’s new Manchester regional centre and UK government hub was formally opened by HMRC chief executive Jim Harra on 12 October. 

10 October 2022

• James Bowler is appointed as the new permanent secretary to the Treasury. Bowler is currently permanent secretary for the department for international trade and was previously permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office. Bowler has over 20 years’ experience in the Treasury, including as head of tax and then spending policy. He has led multiple spending reviews and Budgets at Treasury and was also principal private secretary in Number 10. In his new role, he will have overall responsibility for managing the department, will supervise treasury policy development, and will be the principal adviser to the chancellor and his ministerial team.
  In addition, Cat Little and Beth Russell are appointed second permanent secretaries. Little has worked as the director general of public spending and previously worked at the Ministry of Justice. She is head of the government finance function and will continue in this role alongside her new position. Russell has worked for the Treasury for more than 20 years, most recently as the director general of tax and welfare and principal private secretary to the chancellor. She also currently heads up the Darlington Economic Campus.
• Kirkland & Ellis promotes Emma Faulkner-Hill to tax partner in the firm’s London office. Faulkner-Hill advises on a wide range of complex tax matters, including investment fund structuring, executive incentive arrangements, corporate and private equity transactions, leveraged finance matters, real estate transactions and tax litigation.
• Mercer & Hole promotes Alice Pearson to partner in the firm’s private client team. Pearson advises wealthy individuals and families, entrepreneurs and trustees on all aspects of personal tax. Her particular area of expertise is tax planning for those coming to or leaving the UK (pre-arrival and pre-departure tax planning).
• RWK Goodman appoints Estelle Tague, David Anderson and François Mouniélou to its private client team. All three join the firm from Druces. Tague joins as a partner and will lead the private client team in London. She is a qualified accountant and a former specialist tax barrister. Anderson joins the firm on a consultancy basis. He specialises in private client and tax matters relating to France and Monaco. Mouniélou is a dual qualified French and English tax advisor and will join the firm as an associate.
• Johnston Carmichael appoints Alex Nicholson as partner and head of VAT and indirect tax. Nicholson advises entities from owner-managed businesses to the largest listed FTSE100 companies, across the full spectrum of VAT and indirect taxes in the UK and internationally. He will be based in Newcastle and joins the firm from Armstong Watson.
• Morgan Lewis appoints Todd Smith as a tax partner. Smith will be based in the firm’s London office and will focus on US and international tax matters for sovereign and other institutional investors and multinational businesses. He joins the firm from the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.
• Menzies appoints Matthew Watkins as tax director. Watkins has almost 15 years’ experience in tax investigation and resolution with a focus on private client taxation. He joins the firm from BDO.
• MHA Moore and Smalley promotes Kelly Quail to corporate tax director. She specialises in advising a wide range of SMEs, as well as UK subsidiaries of international businesses, owner-managed firms, and charities on corporate tax matters.

28 September 2022

• RSM UK appoints Simon Taylor as a tax partner. Taylor, formerly of EY, specialises in transfer pricing services and has more than 19 years’ experience working in various tax roles in industry and professional services. He will be based in the firm’s Manchester office. The firm also appoints employment tax specialist David Field as director. Field joins the firm from EY.
• Crowe UK appoints Jennifer McNally as a partner in its national private clients team. McNally joins from Blick Rothenberg and has more than 18 years’ experience.
• Bishop Fleming merges with Gloucestershire based practice Bespoke Tax Accountants practice, with effect from 7 October. 

27 September 2022

• Carpenter Box appoints Thomas Mobee as its new VAT director and head of the firm’s VAT practice. Mobee, formerly of Buzzacott, has over 30 years VAT experience in the charity/not-for-profit, social enterprises, financial services, technology, land and property, investment and corporate sectors.
• Allegro Tax appoints Rebecca Simpson and Alex Barker as tax managers. Both join the firm following career breaks. Simpson was most recently tax manager at Rawlinson and Hunter and Barker was group tax and treasury manager at Michael Page Plc.
• Southwest financial experts Old Mill appoints Chris Watts as associate director in its capital tax advisory team. Watts has 26 years’ experience in the industry, with particular expertise in highly complex tax structures and the tax rules on emerging assets. He joins from Etc Tax and was previously at PKF-Francis Clarke. 

20 September 2022

• Brunswick Group appoints Pascal Saint-Amans as a partner with effect from 1 November 2022. Saint-Amans is the current OECD director of the centre for tax policy and administration, but he is due to leave the OECD at the end of October. In his new role, Saint-Amans will advise clients worldwide on policy and regulatory matters, including tax-related issues. He will be based in Paris.
• The Pebble Group appoints Kate Rothwell as its group head of tax. Rothwell was previously head of tax at ao.com.
• Mishcon de Reya appoints Ceinwen Hayes as a tax partner based in London. Hayes, formerly of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, specialises in real estate tax matters on asset transactions, corporate wrapper deals and development and investment structuring across all key real estate asset classes.
• Claritas Tax promotes Alex Hall to associate partner based in Manchester. Hall has 15 years’ experience in tax advice, specialising in owner-managed businesses.
• Tax Journal understands that following recent changes to the ministerial team at HM Treasury, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Richard Fuller MP now has responsibility for HMRC. Fuller was appointed economic secretary on 8 July 2022. He is the MP for North East Bedfordshire.

13 September 2022

• At HM Treasury, Andrew Griffith MP is appointed as financial secretary to the Treasury (FST) (replacing Lucy Frazer MP) and City minister (replacing John Glen MP). Griffith, a chartered accountant, was previously parliamentary under secretary of state for the Department for International Trade for three months. He is the Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs. The FST's responsibilities include: financial services taxation, including bank levy, bank corp. tax surcharge, IPT; personal savings tax and pensions tax policy; and investment tax reliefs, including EIS, SEIS, and VCTs. 
  Felicity Buchan MP is appointed exchequer secretary to the Treasury (XST) (replacing Alan Mak MP). Buchan is the Conservative MP for Kensington. The XST's responsibilities include: childcare policy, including tax free childcare; environment taxes, including plastics taxation (excluding carbon taxes, such as UK emissions trading scheme, climate change levy and carbon price support); transport taxation including vehicle taxes and future strategy and air passenger duty; excise duties (alcohol, tobacco and gambling), including excise fraud and law enforcement; soft drink industry levy; gift aid; and supporting tax legislation in Parliament. 
  Permanent secretary Sir Tom Scholar has been dismissed as part of a pledge by Prime Minister Truss to change the ‘Treasury orthodoxy’. The cabinet secretary has begin the recruitment process for his successor.
• RSM UK appoints Matt Taylor as tax disputes partner within its private client team in London. Taylor, formerly of PwC, has over 25 years’ experience helping clients resolve their tax disputes. He has specific experience in the sports and entertainment industry, with past clients including football and rugby clubs, governing bodies, and multinational media companies. 

7 September 2022

• Among the new ministerial appointments, the Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng MP, former secretary of state for Business, is appointed chancellor of the exchequer. Chris Philp MP, former parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is appointed chief secretary to the Treasury. He will attend Cabinet. 
• Pascal Saint-Amans steps down as director of OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration. The current deputy director, Grace Perez-Navarro, takes on the director role from 1 November 2022 until 31 March 2023. David Bradbury (head of tax policy and statistics) and Achim Pross (head of division) will become acting deputy directors.
• Kreston Reeves appoints tax disputes specialist George-Thomas Guilherme-Fryer, formerly of Mazars, as a director to lead the firm’s tax disputes and risk management team.
• Scottish based firm Johnston Carmichael appoints Stephen Oates as tax director and head of the firm’s entrepreneurial taxes team. Oates, formerly of French Duncan, has more than 17 years’ experience in tax, with significant expertise in working with owner-managed businesses.
• Travers Smith appoints current tax partner Jessica Kemp as its new head of M&A tax.
• Dion Seymour, HMRC’s former policy and technical adviser leading on cryptoassets, joins Andersen in the UK as its crypto and digital assets technical director.
• Phil Nicklin, former head of REITs and structured transactions at CMS, joins EY as a partner in its real estate tax team.
• Independent consultant Sarah Blakelock joins Deloitte Legal as a partner in its tax litigation, advisory and settlement team based in the London office.
• Dentons appoints Sebastiaan Wijsman as a partner in the firm’s Amsterdam office. Wijsman has more than 17 years’ tax advisory experience, with a particular focus on Dutch tax matters in the real estate sector.

12 August 2022

• Charles Russell Speechlys appoints Nicola Saccardo as a partner within the firm’s private client team in London. Saccardo, formerly of the London office of Maisto, is an Italian tax specialist with over 20 years’ experience, advising clients on cross-border tax and estate planning matters with a focus on the relocation of HNW individuals to Italy and the taxation of trusts.
• PKF Smith Cooper promotes Charlotte Morgan to corporate tax senior manager and Megan Whiley to tax manager.
• ForrestBrown promotes R&D tax incentive policy expert Jenny Tragner to head of policy in addition to her existing role as a director.
• Wilson Wright acquires the tax compliance and advisory business of C Hoare & Co, the UK’s oldest privately owned bank. C. Hoare & Co’s team of four experienced tax professionals will join the firm’s private client tax team.

26 July 2022

• Canary Wharf Group appoints Simon Tatford as director of tax. Simon has 20 years of UK real estate tax experience, most recently working for Quintain Group. 
• KPMG is fined £14.4m for deliberately misleading the accounting regulator during inspections of its audits of collapsed outsourcer Carillion and another UK company, Regenersis. The fine was reduced from £20m to reflect KPMG’s subsequent self-reporting, cooperation and admissions.
• Matthew White commences a second term as senior partner at BDO. He will remain in the role until 2026.

20 July 2022

• Baker McKenzie appoints London based tax partner Kate Alexander as chair of its global technology, media & telecoms industry group. Alexander has more than 20 years’ experience advising clients on their tax matters. She has particular expertise in advising technology companies in relation to all aspects of their cross-border tax structuring.

11 July 2022

• Macfarlanes announces that Sophie Donnithorne-Tait will join the firm later in the summer as a partner in its tax team. Donnithorne-Tait advises on all aspects of UK corporate tax and has particular expertise on the tax aspects of investment fund structures and asset management businesses, as well as on financial restructurings. She will join the firm from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. 
• Shoosmiths appoints tax partner Dan Sharman to head the firm’s employee incentives practice in the tax team. Sharman, formerly of Osborne Clarke, has experience advising a range of UK and international companies on incentives, employee benefits and payroll taxes issues.
• BDO appoints Meenakshi Iyer as a tax partner specialising in transfer pricing. Iyer, who joins the firm from KPMG, has 17 years’ experience advising large corporates and mid-sized businesses.
• KPMG appoints Pauline Finney as international tax director. She joins the firm from John Lewis Partnership.
• Andersen in the UK appoints Keith Meyer as partner in its private client tax group. Meyer, formerly of Deloitte, has nearly 30 years’ experience providing specialist advice on a wide range of international personal tax issues.
• Norton Rose Fulbright appoints London partner Dominic Stuttaford as its global head of tax. Previously the firm’s head of tax in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Stuttaford’s practice focuses on the tax aspects of corporate finance and other finance transactions and structures, with a particular interest in the insurance, resources and technology sectors. 

1 July 2022

• Baker McKenzie promotes Phyllis Townsend to partner in the firm’s London office. Townsend advises trustees, family offices and high-net worth individuals on cross-border tax, asset protection and trust planning, including establishing family office and private trust company structures. 
• Fieldfisher promotes barrister Christopher Kientzler to senior associate and Alex Watton to associate in the firm’s contentious tax team.
• Pinsent Masons launches an office in Luxembourg following the acquisition of local firm Wildgen, adding seven partners specialising in insurance, banking, tax and M&A and 16 lawyers. The office will be headed by partner Michel Bulach. 

28 June 2022

• Heather Self retires from Blick Rothenberg at the end of June, but will continue to work with the firm on a consultancy basis.. Self has over 30 years’ experience, most recently as a partner at Pinsent Masons and prior to that as the head of tax at a FTSE 100 company, an anti-avoidance adviser at HMRC and a partner at a Big 4 accounting firm. She is recognised for her work in setting up the ‘Women in Tax’ network and regularly speaks and writes on tax matters.
• MHA Moore and Smalley appoints Humairah Perager as tax consultant based in Manchester. She joins the firm from Jack Ross Chartered Accountants.
• Jim Burberry retires from RSM’s Edinburgh office where he was head of VAT and indirect taxes.
• Dechert appoints tax partner Kevin Zaragoza in the firm’s New York office from Covington. 

17 June 2022

• Weightmans and RadcliffesLeBrasseur complete their merger to create the new Weightmans LLP. The combined firm will have a turnover of £120m+, with 225 Partners and a total headcount of over 1400 people based across nine offices: Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle.
• Gareth Purnell, formerly head of direct taxes at Deliveroo, becomes head of tax at Cazoo.
• Charles Russell Speechlys appoints Jeremy Arnold as a senior counsel in the tax, trusts and succession department. Arnold has over 30 years’ experience advising clients on all aspects of private client work, encompassing wealth structuring, tax, trusts and estate matters. He joins the firm from Withers.
• Stephenson Harwood appoints Nicholas Stretch as a partner in its London office. Stretch, formerly of Ashurst, has more than 25 years’ experience advising companies on all aspects of employee incentives and remuneration matters for both listed and private companies. He has particular expertise in the design and implementation of bespoke share plans including advising on the tax structuring and corporate governance aspects.

13 June 2022

• Among those honoured in the Queen’s Birthday Honours are the following at HMRC: Penny Ciniewicz CB; Simon Cubitt, MBE; Ben Good, MBE; Pru Orridge, MBE; Elizabeth Ekeleoseye Owolabi, MBE; Pam Scarry, MBE; Fazle Kinkhabwala, BEM and Helen Watson, BEM.
• Tilney Smith & Williamson appoints Stephen Woodhouse as a partner with a remit to build its private equity tax offering. Woodhouse, formerly of EY, is a specialist in this field and has over 15 years of experience supporting mid-market private equity clients and their management teams on the tax implications of all aspects of corporate finance activity.
• Accountancy firm haysmacintye appoints Natasha Frangos as its new managing partner, effective from 1 July 2022. The firm says that this makes Frangos one the few female leaders to lead a large UK accountancy firm. Frangos joined haysmacintyre as a trainee in 2000, and has been a partner at the firm for 13 years, 

6 June 2022

• Baker Tilly International appoints Francesca Lagerberg as chief executive officer of the global network. Lagerberg has more than 25 years’ experience in professional services, most recently as global leader with Grant Thornton, specialising in cross-border and international business support. She has been a champion of diversity and inclusion in boardrooms and has worked directly with senior leadership teams on their inclusion strategies.
• The CIOT announces its team of officers for 2022/23. Susan Ball (RSM UK) becomes president, Gary Ashford (Harbottle and Lewis) deputy president and Charlotte Barbour (ICAS) vice-president. They will hold these posts for the next 12 months. In her inaugural speech as CIOT President Ball announced that the Institute is to launch a diploma in tax technology, responding to the impact that technology is having on the work of tax professionals.
• CMS appoints Jaspal Pachu as a partner in the firm’s employee Incentives practice. Pachu, formerly of Freeths, has significant experience of advising on cross-border tax and incentives matters, private equity transactions, employee ownership trusts and has a broad corporate tax background. 
• Linklaters appoints Oliver Rosenberg, partner in the firm’s Düsseldorf office, as its new global head of Tax. Rosenberg, who succeeds Dick Hofland, has headed up the firm’s German tax practice since 2019 and is a member of the German executive team. He has leading expertise in the market for advising on domestic and cross-border M&A transactions, complex cross-border tax structuring and planning, and domestic and international tax disputes.

27 May 2022

• Taylor Wessing appoints two new partners. James Ross will join the firm from McDermott Will & Emery in July. Ross provides advice on corporate and commercial tax issues to corporates, funds and individuals. While his practice is wide-ranging, he has particular expertise in advising on the structuring of corporate groups and of mergers and acquisitions. Much of his work is cross-border, and he has extensive experience of advising on UK and European inbound investments, particularly from the United States, and on group reorganisations. Claire Matthews joins the firm on 1 July in London from Linklaters in Singapore. She advises on all aspects of incentives and reward. She has experience in creating UK and international share plans, advising on reward strategy, corporate transactions, and governance as well as disclosure, regulation, tax and operational issues.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints Nicola Manclark as a partner in its Bristol office. Manclark, formerly of Ashfords, has 20 years’ experience advising a variety of clients, including tech companies and property businesses, on the tax implications of a broad range of business issues, particularly transactions such as the sale of companies and real estate. In her new role she will work closely with the firm’s corporate finance team to guide clients through acquisitions, disposals and other deals.
• Ampa, the parent group of Shakespeare Martineau, completes a merger with GL Law. The firm, which has offices in London and Bristol, will take the name of Shakespeare Martineau.

20 May 2022

• RPC appoints Liam McKay as a senior associate in its tax disputes resolution team. Prior to joining RPC, McKay was a senior member of HMRC's Solicitor's Office.
• Private client tax specialist Wendy Walton retires from her role at BDO having joined the firm as a school leaver apprentice. She was promoted to partner in 2000 and global head of private client services in 2006. She joined BDO’s leadership team in 2016 with responsibility for partner engagement and development.
• HW Fisher promotes Amy Crosby and Mark Taylor to director. Crosby has more than 15 years’ tax experience advising clients across a range of sectors, including not for profit, construction and retail. Taylor has more than 10 years’ experience providing commercial, financial and tax advice to SMEs and their owners.

18 May 2022

• Osborne Clarke appoints incentives specialist Anika Chandra as a partner in the firm’s international tax team. Chandra, formerly of Shoosmiths, has a wealth of experience in employee incentives matters.
• Winners of the Tolley's Taxation Awards 2022 include Eversheds Sutherland (best corporate or business tax practice); Pinsent Masons (best tax disputes/investigations team); PricewaterhouseCoopers (best VAT/indirect tax team); McDermott Will & Emery (best international tax team); BDO 's tax assurance and risk management practice (best specialist team in a law or accounting firm); McKie & Co (best private client tax practice); and Smiths Group plc (best in-house tax team). Women in Tax won the award for outstanding contribution to tax by a not-for-profit organisation, while Peter Rayney won the award for outstanding contribution to tax by an individual. Sam Inkersole (BKL) won the award for rising star, while recently retired George Bull (formerly of RSM UK) won the lifetime achievement award. For details of all the winners and shortlisted entrants, click here.

6 May 2022

• Manchester and Liverpool based accountants and tax advisers Williamson & Croft becomes a member of Integra International , a global association of chartered accountants, CPAs, tax advisors and business advisers.
• BDO appoints Timothy Golby as a tax partner specialising in tax relating to partnerships in the firm’s private client team. Golby, formerly of Bird and Bird, has more than 20 years’ experience advising on complex tax issues often across multiple jurisdictions. 
• Blick Rothenberg appoints Paul Cooper as a partner in financial services and Ed Rieu a partner in US/UK private client. Cooper has many years’ experience as a deals tax partner at a number of large accounting firms, with a particular focus on venture capital and private equity clients. Rieu, a US lawyer, has over 35 years' experience providing US tax compliance and consultancy services to entrepreneurs, SMEs, hedge fund managers, private equity and businesses looking to invest or expand in the US or the UK. He joins the firm from  Sopher + Co.
• EY appoints Cristiana Bulbuc as manager, international tax and transaction services at EY. She joins the firm from Joseph Hage Aaronson.
• BDO appoints Matthew Clark as partner, customs, excise & international trade. He joins the firm from PwC.
• KPMG Law plans to double in size over the next three years, taking on a further 220 lawyers by the end of 2024. The new hires will comprise 45 partners and directors and see the total number of practicing solicitors increase to more than 400. The expansion plans are part of KPMG UK’s £300m growth strategy.  
• Charles Russell Speechlys promotes Raphaël Bagdassarian (corporate tax, France) and Alice Martin (tax trusts and succession, Switzerland) to partner.

4 May 2022

• Tax lawyer Dan Neidle retires from the Clifford Chance partnership. He has founded Tax Policy Associates Ltd as a not-for-profit company, which aims to work in association with policymakers, academics, journalists and others, to improve the public understanding of tax and improve tax policy.
• Tax specialist Pete Miller of The Miller Partnership and Jerroms accountants and business advisers announce a joint venture, operating under the new name of Jerroms Miller Specialist Tax, which will advise on a range of business tax scenarios.
• Clifford Chance promotes tax specialists Jemma Dick, Nicola Hemsley and Laura Underhill to partner, with immediate effect. Dick specialises in advising on the UK tax aspects of finance, capital markets and M&A transactions. She has particular experience in advising on real estate finance and structured finance deals. Hemsley advises corporates, financial investors and financial institutions on the tax aspects of a wide variety of cross-border corporate and equity capital markets transactions. Underhill specialises in the taxation of investment funds and advises fund managers in respect of a wide range of tax matters.
  
• Allen & Overy promotes Tim Harrop to partner. Harrop advises on the tax aspects of international and domestic (public and private) mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, group structuring, reorganisations and demergers, equity capital markets transactions, banking transactions, commercial trusts and tax disputes and investigations. He is based in the firm’s London office.
• Herbert Smith Freehills promotes Josh Lom to partner. Lom advises clients on numerous strategic tax matters, including public and private M&A, establishing and reorganising businesses and litigation with tax authorities. He also regularly advises partnerships on legal matters arising on their establishment and in the course of their business dealings.
• Ashurst appoints Patricia Allen as a partner in the London tax team. With over 25 years' experience, Allen was previously a partner at Ashurst for ten years until 2010, before co-founding a boutique tax advisory practice, Johnson & Allen Tax, which she has continued to run. She has particular experience in the taxation of investment funds, their formation and the taxation of executives who hold a carried interest in such funds.
• Stephenson Harwood promotes Kate Worthington to partner in the firm's corporate group. Based in London, Worthington advises on a broad range of corporate and real estate tax matters. She has particular experience advising on real estate transactions and has acted extensively for institutional investors, listed funds (including REITs), private companies and individuals in this context. She also has experience in corporate and financing transactions, funds, joint ventures, domestic and international tax structuring, and tax disputes.
• PKF Littlejohn appoints Mark Ellis as a VAT partner in its London office. Ellis, formerly of BDO, has over 30 years’ experience as a tax adviser and has worked with clients across a wide range of sectors, both in the UK and internationally, offering strategic and operational VAT support.
• Mazars appoints Linda Adelson as tax partner in its London office. Adelson, formerly of Rosetta Tax, is a leading VAT expert and in her new role will focus on building Mazars’ VAT advisory practice.
• RSM UK appoints Vinod Keshav as partner within its corporate tax team in Guildford. Keshav, formerly of PwC, has over 20 years’ tax experience,  specialising in advising clients on intellectual property and business model related tax matters (including UK patent box). He also supports clients through business and supply chain restructuring, as well as expansion, from initial design through to implementation.
• DLA Piper appoints corporate and international tax specialist Declan Lavelle as a partner in the firm's tax practice in Ireland. He joins the firm in July from William Fry.
• Azets acquires North East based firm Tait Walker. It is the third acquisition in four months for the firm which now has a UK regional network of 84 offices.
  

25 April 2022

• Boutique law firm Bellevue Law appoints private client specialist Harriet Atkinson to launch its probate and estate administration service. Atkinson, formerly of Forsters, advises on all aspects of private client work including wills, trusts and tax planning. 
• Herbert Smith Freehills promotes Susie Geddes to director of tax and partner finance. Geddes was previously head of international tax at the firm.
• Fieldfisher promotes contentious tax specialist Matthew Sharp to partner, effective 1 May. Sharp advises on direct and indirect tax disputes across all industry sectors, acting for corporates and private individuals. He has particular expertise in employment-related tax issues and private client tax issues. He also has experience advising on complex and high-value professional negligence claims relating to tax.
• Irwin Mitchell opens new offices in Cardiff and Liverpool, bringing the firm’s total number of UK offices to 17. Both offices will open in mid-May.

19 April 2022

• Burges Salmon promotes Hilary Barclay to partner with effect from 1 May. Barclay has considerable experience of a broad range of corporate tax matters and particular expertise in corporate and financing transactions, reorganisations and group tax advice. The firm additionally promotes Tim Williams to director. Williams specialises in tax, estate planning and trust work.
• London based law firms Seddons and Lawrence Stephens announce that they are in the advanced stages of merger talks. The combination will create a full service law firm of over 180 people with a joint £25m annual turnover. The merger is expected to complete in October this year. 

13 April 2022

• Freshfields promotes Vienna-based Katharina Kubik to tax partner with effect from 1 May
• Linklaters promotes Caroline Borgers (Brussels) and Jamie Coomber (London) to tax partner with effect from 1 May.
• Tilney Smith & Williamson appoints Dominic Arnold and Jodie Barwick-Bell as partners in its private client tax team. Arnolds, formerly of BDO, has more than 30 years’ experience of contentious tax matters and specialises in helping individuals and businesses navigate complex issues with HMRC. He will be based in the firm’s London office. Barwick-Bell, formerly of Deloitte, has 24 years’ experience advising private clients, business owners, trustees and family offices. Her practice will be based in Yorkshire and the North East. The firm will re-brand to Evelyn Partners in the summer.
• Saffery Champness promotes to partnership six directors across its Bristol, Harrogate, London and Peterborough offices, effective immediately. Alexandra Britton-Davis is based in London and advises high net worth individuals, trustees and family offices on their UK tax affairs, estate and succession planning. Ross Lomas, based in Peterborough, advises a client base of corporate, entrepreneurial and international businesses across a range of sectors.  Isla McGillivray, based in London, provides specialist financial, accounting, audit and taxation advice to clients that include film and TV companies, UK and US-based studios, UK-based independent production companies, game development companies and multinational publishers. Lizzie Murray, based in London, works with high-net-worth families to support them in all aspects of their financial affairs; providing tax advice and overseeing the compliance work for clients’ companies, trusts and partnerships. Justine Stalker leads both the national R&D tax credit practice for the firm and the corporation tax team in Harrogate. Leonora Stevens, based in Bristol, gives long-term strategic advice to individuals, families and their business interests.
• Chartered accountants and business advisers Clive Owen, appoints David Baggaley as a tax partner. Baggaley joins the firm from EY.
• Beavis Morgan promotes personal tax specialist Neal Groves to client partner. 

4 April 2022

• Charles Russell Speechlys appoints tax and trusts specialist Tom Henderson as head of trusts, responsible for the firm’s trust administration business. Henderson has more than 25 years’ experience advising private clients and trustees. He joins the firm from Rawlinson & Hunter.
• HMRC appoints Andrew Pemberton as director of communications and head of the communications profession, with immediate effect. Pemberton has been interim director since October 2021 and previously led HMRC’s customer strategy and tax design communications team.
• BKL merges with FSPG chartered accountants. FSPG’s team will move into BKL’s London office creating a team of over 200 people, including 20 partners.
• George Bull, senior tax partner at RSM, announces his retirement. Bull has worked at RSM for 23 years but began his 46 year tax career as an inspector of taxes in what was then the Inland Revenue.
• Crowe promotes Andrew Hawley to partner in the corporate tax team. Hawley has more than 18 years’ tax experience supporting large and international corporates. The firm additionally appoints Trevor Ling as a partner in the corporate tax team. Ling, formerly of Grant Thornton, has more than 20 years’ tax experience, having previously held roles in in-house tax teams at FTSE-listed companies and as a consultant.
• The GAAR advisory panel is seeking applications for three additional panel members. Applications to these voluntary positions are encouraged from candidates with expertise in any of the taxes covered by the GAAR legislation in particular employee tax or SDLT. Panel members are initially appointed for a term of three years and applications are invited by 24 April. Further details may be found on the Government’s public appointments website.

28 March 2022

• Joseph Hage Aaronson LLP appoints Iain MacWhannell as a tax partner. MacWhannell, who joins from Memery Crystal, will focus on indirect taxes and cases involving allegations of fraud and/or abuse, and investigations. The firm also promotes Jill Kaur, Helen McGhee and Shofiqur Miah to the position of director.
• Global (re)insurance company Canopius appoints Jennie Rimmer as head of tax responsible for global tax matters for the group. She joins the company from R&Q.
• Slaughter and May promotes Charles Osborne to tax partner with effect from 1 May. He is based in the firm’s London office.
• RSM UK appoints Simon Atkins as partner in its VAT team in London. Atkins, formerly of Deloitte, has 22 years’ experience advising clients on indirect tax issues, including the complex VAT rules around property, partial exemption and electronically supplied services. 

21 March 2022

• Chiomenti appoints Raffaele Russo as of counsel in its tax advisory practice. Russo has more than 20 years’ experience in international taxation and tax policy. He previously spent 15 years at the OECD in Paris, where he worked on the BEPS project. From 2016 to 2021, he was seconded to the Cabinet of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance. He will be based in the firm’s Rome office.
• Travers Smith promotes tax partner Russell Warren to the newly created role of head of M&A tax. Warren advises private fund and asset management clients on a wide range of transactional tax matters. His clients also include management teams backed by financial sponsors and their portfolio companies.
• UHY Hacker Young Manchester appoints Simon Denye as tax partner. Denye, formerly of ETC Tax, has 25 years’ experience working across all areas of tax with a particular focus advising on the tax aspects of corporate transactions, including M&A, demergers and restructuring.
• Fieldfisher appoints Elena Tzialli as a partner in its private client team. Tzialli, formerly of Fletcher Day, specialises in working with HNWIs, celebrities and other types of private client based in the UK and has a strong track record working with Greek Cypriot clients. 
• KPMG Law appoints Sarah Daley as a senior manager barrister specialising in tax disputes. Daley joins the firm from the National Crime Agency.
• Andy Spreadbury joins luxury travel specialists Abercrombie & Kent UK as vice president, tax. He joins from Global Brands Group.

14 March 2022

• Helen Gunson, formerly of Freshfields, joins independent investment group iCON Infrastructure as head of tax.
• BDO appoints Louise Cupples as a tax partner advising medium-sized and larger professional service clients on international and UK tax matters with a particular focus on the legal, consultancy and property advisory sectors. Cupples joins the firm from Deloitte. Additionally, David Ellis joins as a tax partner in the firm’s global employer services team, specialising in advising clients on strategic reward, with a particular focus on technology driven organisations. He previously ran his own reward consultancy business. Both partners will be based in London.
• Howard Kennedy appoints James Meakin as partner and head of tax. Meakin focuses on the tax aspects of corporate and real estate transactions, including M&A, group reorganisations, venture capital, joint ventures and private equity, from both a domestic and cross-border perspective. He joins the firm from Dentons.
• UHY Hacker Young (East) appoints Alison Price as tax partner and head of tax. Price, formerly of Tyrell & Co, provides tax advisory and compliance services to corporate clients in the Cambridge area.

7 March 2022

• Tilney Smith & Wiliamson announces that it will operate under a single brand, Evelyn Partners, from summer this year.
• Milsted Langdon appoints Ben Branson as senior tax manager. Branson, formerly of Azets, has over ten years’ experience with a particular interest in international taxation and UK residency and domicile issues. He will be based in the firm’s Taunton office.
• Shaw Gibbs promotes Emily Hillier to associate director, personal tax. Hillier advises primarily on international and property taxes and leads the firm’s property sector team. 
• North West based accountancy practice Williamson & Croft promotes Chris Watson to tax partner. Watson has broad tax experience and is the firm's primary contact for its tax consulting services.
• BKL appoints new tax director Helena Kanczula. Kanczula, who joins from Blick Rothenberg, will be working with clients in the financial services industry.

28 February 2022

• Armstrong Watson acquires Leeds-based practice Grants chartered accountants. Following the merger, which took effect on 1 February, seven staff will join the firm’s Leeds city centre office. Jonathan Grant, formerly of Grants, joins Armstrong Watson as a consultant and will continue to provide tax and accounting services to existing clients.
• Squire Patton Boggs promotes Victoria Murphy to partner in the firm’s global tax strategy and benefits practice. Murphy has experience in a wide variety of taxation matters relating to corporate finance in both the mergers and acquisitions, and private equity fields, alongside a depth of experience in employment taxes and share schemes, and employee benefits. She is based in the firm’s Manchester office.
• Boodle Hatfield appoints Clare Stirzaker as a private client partner. Stirzaker joins the firm from PwC where she led the private client legal team. She specialises in succession planning and related legal and tax matters for international private clients and family offices.
• Howard Watkinson joins Devereux Chambers’ tax team. Watkinson, formerly of 2 Hare Court, is an experienced specialist in tax, excise and other customs duties, public law, business crime, anti-money laundering regulations, fraud, health and safety, and regulatory work.
• BDO appoints Ed Gibson as an international tax partner and Radeep Mathew as tax partner. Gibson, formerly of Deloitte, has almost 20 years’ experience advising clients on their global tax requirements. He will be based in the North West region. Mathew, formerly of consultancy firm Leyton, has over 15 years’ experience advising a wide range of clients from owner managed businesses to larger corporates with an international presence. He will be based in London.

21 February 2022

• Bishop Fleming appoints Peter Ball as a tax partner. Ball, formerly of Smith & Williamson, is experienced in advising high profile entrepreneurs and family groups and will be based in the firm’s Bristol office.
• Greenberg Traurig promotes Jessica Ganagasegaran to shareholder in the firm’s private equity real estate team. Ganagasegaran advises on tax and structuring aspects of UK and international transactions, including the structuring of joint ventures investing in real estate and real estate debt, development, financing, and transactions involving real estate operational businesses.
• The personal tax app untied appoints Paul Aplin OBE as a senior adviser. Aplin is a former president of the ICAEW and a board member of the OTS. In his new role, he will help develop innovations in untied’s technology, including the company’s adviser platform and MTD for income tax, which untied is rolling out as part of HMRC’s pilot.
• KPMG and Blue J launch a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) tax analysis tools in the UK. Blue J provides predictive analysis tools for tax positions in North America and KPMG is its first alliance partner in Europe. The tool will enable the firm’s tax team to use AI to predict tax scenario outcomes with accuracy, reducing the time spent searching for and analysing tax legislation and case law.
• Retirement villages operator Inspired Villages appoints Tajinder Samra as its head of tax. Samra, formerly of High Speed Two, has more than ten years’ corporate tax experience and has also held roles at KPMG and PwC.
• US accounting firms BKD and DHG merge to create a new national professional services firm with $1.4 billion in revenue. The two firms will operate under a new firm name that will be announced at a later date. The merger is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022.

15 February 2022

• Mishcon de Reya appoints David Whittaker as a partner in the firm's tax and wealth planning group in London. Whittaker’s practice covers both contentious and non-contentious multijurisdictional matters for ultra-high net worth individuals, families, international financial institutions, trustees and private banks. He joins the firm from Baker McKenzie.
• N Brown Group appoints Gareth Littlewood, formerly of Freemans Grattan Holdings, as its head of tax and treasury.
• EY appoints Hannah Hurley, formerly of Blick Rothenberg, as a tax manager. Hurley has a tax focus on privately-owned businesses.

11 February 2022

• PwC UK appoints Manchester based partner Emma Suchland as its new head of private business. Suchland, who joined PwC as a tax partner in 2016, has almost 25 years’ experience working with entrepreneurs on operational tax matters, compliance and governance, international expansion, funding structures and refinancings, as well as bolt-on acquisitions and disposal.
• R&D tax credit specialists EmpowerRD appoint Jonathan Yeoman as tax lead. Yeoman, formerly of personal tax software company Untied, has many years’ experience at HMRC at senior inspector level and as a compliance project board member and risk lead for SME technical projects involving R&D and other corporate tax reliefs.
• Addleshaw Goddard merges with Dublin based firm Eugene F Collins. The business, people and all 25 Eugene F Collins partners will become part of the Addleshaw Goddard group by 1 March 2022.

8 February 2022

• Clifford Chance appoints Pablo Serrano de Haro Martínez as the new global leader of its tax, pensions, employment & incentives (TPE) practice. He will serve a four-year term, taking over from Chris Davies who will continue as leader of the tax team in the UK. Martinez, who joined the Madrid office of the firm in 2001, has more than 25 years’ experience advising financial investors on the structuring of their investments and incorporation of funds, as well as working with a broad client base on large corporate restructurings and cross-border M&A. His main areas of practice are international tax structuring, M&A, real estate, finance, and tax litigation.
• DWF promotes tax partner Jon Stevens as global deputy head of tax & private capital. Stevens is experienced in all aspects of tax planning related to corporate and property transactions, including the sale and purchase of companies, businesses and properties; joint ventures; group restructuring and reorganisations; the structuring of corporate and property deals, including real estate funds; and the tax aspects of PPP and PFI. He is office managing partner in the firm’s Birmingham office.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints Faye Howard, formerly of Scrutton Bland, as partner and head of the firm’s private client offering in Dorset, Wiltshire and surrounding areas.
• BKL appoints of new director of trusts Hazel Johnson. Johnson, former head of tax services at Wilton Group,has more than 25 years’ experience advising high net worth individuals and families. She is the newest member of BKL's dedicated trusts and estates team, joining BKL’s first Director of Trusts Lindsay House.
• Mark Davies & Associates appoints Craig Kemsley , as a tax partner. Kemsley, formerly of Calibrate Law, advises international families, single family offices and successful entrepreneurs on UK and International tax issues arising on their personal and business interests.

31 January 2022

• MHA Moore and Smalley appoints Ben Gill as a private client tax senior manager. Gill specialises in several areas of tax planning including residence and domicile, capital taxes and wider family succession planning. He joins the firm from Lancaster Knox.
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints Kunal Nathwani as tax associate. He joins the firm from Eversheds Sutherland.
• Keystone Law appoints Paul McCourt as tax partner. McCourt, formerly of BDO, specialises in corporate transactions, property transactions and share schemes. He also advises on SDLT and VAT on the acquisition of UK property and other stamp duty related matters.
  
• Weightmans and RadcliffesLeBrasseur announce they are now in formal contract negotiations with a view to completing a merger of the two firms at the end of March 2022. The merged firm will have 225 partners and a total headcount of over 1400 people and will be known as Weightmans LLP.
• Azets appoints Gurj Sandhu as partner and national head of capital allowances. Sandhu, formerly of RSM UK, specialises in capital allowances and land remediation relief and has extensive experience advising across a broad range of clients and sectors.
• RSM appoints James Hunt as corporate tax partner. Hunt joins the firm from Deloitte and will be based in Birmingham. 

17 January 2022

• KPMG UK promotes 15 new tax partners. John Addison, Jonathan Downing, Mark Hutton, Jennifer Lee, Gemma O’Brien, Simon Page, Philippa Sanderson and James Sia become partners in the firm’s corporate tax team; Aruni Mukherjee and Neil Weedon in indirect tax; Michelle Berners Price and Athos Tziambazis in people services tax; Oliver Dockray and Stuart Tait in tax technology, and Craig Rowlands in family office & private client.
• Baker McKenzie appoints Jim Charlton and Miles Humphrey into the firm's tax practice. Charlton will be based in London, and Humphrey in New York. Both focus on international projects for large MNEs and also significant financial services MNEs, with particular expertise in financing, tax reform, hybrids and other BEPs related matters. They join the firm from Deloitte.
• Menzies promote Anthony Lalsing to tax partner, based at the firm’s Leatherhead office. He specialises in advising businesses on how to make the most of available R&D tax reliefs and allowances.
• Tilney Smith & Williamson appoints Colette Henshaw, formerly of Cushman and Wakefield, to lead its new business rates offering.
• Keziah Mastin has joins RPC's tax disputes resolution team from HMRC's Solicitor's Office.

10 January 2022

• FTI Consulting promotes Paul Pritchard to senior managing director. Pritchard advises on tax aspects of complex debt restructurings and is based in the firm’s London office.
• PwC UK appoints Laura Hinton as head of tax. The role also includes leadership of the firm’s legal and people and organisation practices. Hinton, a partner and member of the firm’s  executive board, has over 25 years’ experience as a business consultant, specialising in HR and workforce transformation, operating model programmes and culture change. Marissa Thomas becomes chief operating officer, having previously held the role of head of tax. PwC UK also promotes Vicky Bradford to partner in the firm’s tax reporting and strategy network, as part of the tax enterprise resource planning and data team. Additionally, PwC has promoted 74 people to manager, 61 to senior manager and 24 to director within its tax practice in January.
• RSM UK appoints Joost Willemsen as director and global VAT compliance and reporting leader within its national outsourcing team. Joost, formerly of KPMG, has extensive VAT expertise in a range of sectors, including retail, healthcare and education. He will be based in the firm’s Cambridge office.
• Julian Hickey joins Old Square Tax Chambers with immediate effect. Hickey, formerly of Addington Chambers, is a highly experienced London based tax barrister, specialising in HMRC tax enquiries, tax appeals and tax reviews.  He has an advisory and litigation practice that covers all UK taxes and represents both taxpayers and HMRC (as a member of the Attorney General’s B Panel).
• BDO appoints Lisa Oakes as a tax partner with a specific focus on the real estate sector. Oakes, formerly of KPMG, has over 10 years’ experience advising funds and other institutions with real estate investments. In her new role she will advise businesses across the full range of real estate sub-sectors with a particular focus on the operational real estate sector including retirement and residential sectors.
• Matt Baldry, formerly of Mercedes-Benz,  joins Britishvolt as head of tax.
• Julia Garbutt joins KPMG as indirect tax manager from Grant Thornton.
• Leonard Wagenaar, formerly of IFM investors, joins EY as a director in the firm’s transaction tax team.

5 January 2022

• Mazars appoints Jim Boylan as a tax partner in the firm’s London office. Boylan, formerly of EY, has more than 30 years’ experience at HMRC and in private practice at Big 4 firms. In his new role he will be responsible for growing the specialist tax services team, with a focus on the large and listed sector, both in London and across the UK. The firm also appoints Chloë Ellis as office managing partner in Leeds. Ellis has over 20 years’ experience in providing advice to owner-managed businesses and large corporate groups with complex international tax issues.
• Debevoise & Plimpton appoints Matthew Pincus as an international counsel in the firm’s tax group, primarily focusing on the tax aspects of private investment funds and secondary transactions. Pincus, formerly of Proskauer Rose, is an experienced adviser on U.S. tax issues associated with the formation of and investments in private equity and other alternative asset funds, and regularly represents clients in fund secondary transactions, including portfolio sales, GP-led transactions, fund restructurings and preferred equity financings. He will be based in the firm’s London office.
• A total of 101 new silks were announced by the Lord Chancellor on Wednesday 22 December. Among them are the following with a practice in tax: Ed Brown (Essex Court Chambers) and Mark Fell (Radcliffe Chambers).

21 December 2021

• BDB Pitmans agrees a merger with private client boutique Portrait Solicitors. The firm’s three partners (Judith Portrait, Dominic Flynn and Helen Johnston) and their team of associates will join BDB Pitmans and be based at the firm’s City office. The transaction is due to complete in April 2022.
• Tilney Smith & Williamson appoints Sian Steele to the newly created role of head of private client tax services. Steele has considerable experience dealing with international families and their businesses, with a particular focus on the design, development and implementation of effective family governance and ownership strategies. Currently a family business consultant, adviser and portfolio NED, Steele was previously a senior partner at PwC.
• UHY Hacker Young appoints Kevin Edwards as R&D tax partner in its London office. Edwards, formerly of Duncan & Toplis, has almost 20 years’ experience working within R&D tax credits, advising on large and complex R&D tax credit claims in a range of sectors, including construction, pharmaceuticals, engineering, advanced manufacturing, and software.
• EY acquires UK consulting business PeakEPM Ltd, a provider of financial planning, stress testing and cost management consulting for financial services, industrial and energy firms.
• Moore Kingston Smith promotes Stephanie Sharpe and John Williams to tax director. Sharpe advises private clients in all areas of tax and intergenerational wealth planning, including family trusts. Williams provides compliance and advisory services with a focus on employment tax.

6 December 2021

• Grant Thornton appoints Matthew Pannell as a director to lead and develop its existing US-UK private client tax advisory and compliance team in London. Pannell is qualified in both the US and UK and specialises in providing cross border tax advice to wealthy private individuals, their businesses, and their families. He joins the firm from EY Frank Hirth.
• Gateley Legal appoint Lynnette Bober as tax director, private client. Bober, formerly of Rawlinson & Hunter, specialises in private client taxation, including domicile, remittance basis and offshore trust issues.
• Akin Gump appoints Stephen Brown as a partner in the firm’s London office. Brown, formerly of Icon Law, advises private equity sponsors and public companies on executive employment issues and in relation to the structuring and taxation of share schemes and management incentive arrangements and their taxation, in the UK and internationally.
• Rawlinson & Hunter appoints Alex Jones as a partner in its US/UK transatlantic tax team. Jones, formerly of EY Frank Hirth, has over 30 years’ experience in US and UK personal tax, providing complex planning and assistance to high-net-worth individuals. He specialises in private equity, hedge funds and real estate funds, personal tax issues related to fund structuring and reward, and specialist advice for entertainment and sports clients.
• Dechert promotes George Davis and Elizabeth Ann Guidi to tax partner, effective 1 January 2022. Both are based in the firm’s New York office.
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges promotes Eric D. Behl-Remijan (New York) and Benjamin Rapp (Frankfurt) to tax partner, effective 1 January 2022.
• Azets acquires Garbutt + Elliott, a specialist accountancy firm with offices in York and Leeds.

26 November 2021

• KPMG UK appoints Candice Nichol as a deal advisory tax partner in London. Nichol, formerly of Simmons & Simmons, has 14 years’ experience advising clients in the financial services sectors on complex, cross-border transactions, as well all aspects of deal, balance sheet and fund structures. In her new role she will focus on advising the firm’s large cap private equity clients on M&A transactions. Also newly appointed is Justin LaHood, who will lead KPMG UK’s financial services tax transformation business. He has previously held senior tax roles at Pacific Life Re, AIG and Swiss Re.
• Weil Gotshal & Manges promotes tax specialists Benjamin Rapp (Frankfurt) and Eric D. Behl-Remijan (New York) to partner.
• Lubbock Fine promotes VAT specialist Jaspal Dhillon to partner.
• Grant Thornton appoints Ashley Wilkinson as a corporate tax manager based in Leeds. He joins the firm from HMRC.

23 November 2021

• Mayer Brown promotes Kitty Swanson to partner in the tax practice of the firm’s London office. She advises as advised on the tax aspects of a wide range of domestic and cross-border matters and transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, fund structuring, domestic and international reorganisations, real estate transactions, employment-related matters, banking and structured finance, and insurance matters.
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints Alexander Cox as a partner in the tax practice group in the London office. Cox’s practice focuses on the structuring of investment funds, including advising in relation to management company tax issues and carried interest. In addition, he also has significant experience advising on real estate tax matters covering both the establishment of real estate funds and the M&A transactions they undertake. He joins the firm from Ashurst.
• Shaw Gibbs appoints Peter Jones as private client tax partner. Jones, formerly of Azets, has 18 years’ experience working in practice and assisting private clients.
• EY acquires Tao Leadership Limited (Tao), a consultancy, which focuses on organizational transformation and culture change in businesses of all sizes. Tao was founded in 2013 and the company is headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne. Following the acquisition, services will be offered by EY teams to businesses across the world.
• Regional accountancy firm Albert Goodman appoints Anne Gardner-Thorpe as a tax partner based in the firm’s Taunton headquarters. She joins the firm from BDO.  

17 November 2021

• Grant Thornton launches a new economic consulting practice. The practice will provide micro-economic advice across a number of areas and will be led by two new partner appointments, Schellion Horn and Chris Williams.
  
• Akin Gump promotes Serena Lee to partner in the firm’s London office. Lee advises clients on a broad range of corporate tax matters, including domestic and international corporate and finance transactions, financial restructurings and corporate reorganisations.
• Mishcon de Reya promotes Stuart Adams (private client) and Waqar Shah (dispute resolution) to partner. Adams advises high net worth clients, providing UK and international tax advice. Shah’s practice focuses on high value complex indirect and direct tax cases and matters concerning tax avoidance.
• Frazier & Deeter acquires Confluence Tax, a specialist tax practice providing tax planning, tax compliance and other advisory services to biotechnology and technology companies in the UK. Confluence Tax founder Colin Hailey will continue to lead the firm from their office in Cambridge. 
• Grant Thornton appoints Ben Proctor as a director in the firm’s tax dispute resolution team. Proctor, formerly of PwC, specialises in complex corporate tax disputes and will lead the London team.
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges appoints Andrew Morris as a partner in the global tax practice, based in Weil’s New York office. He joins the firm from Linklaters.
• Regional chartered accountancy firm Albert Goodman appoints Anne Gardner-Thorpe as a tax partner. Private client specialist Gardner-Thorpe, formerly of BDO, will be based in the firm’s Taunton headquarters.

8 November 2021

• Kingsley Napley appoints Matt Spencer as a partner to help build a new tax practice. Spencer, formerly of DAC Beachcroft, advises on a wide range of corporate and real estate transactions, employment tax issues and the structuring of employee incentive schemes, and VAT. His arrival follows the appointment of partner Laura Harper in the summer. The firm intends to appoint further specialists in due course.  
• Deloitte appoints Lucie Swiestowska as director, supply chain tax operations. She joins from Burberry.
• Clifford Chance appoints Sonia Gilbert as the new London leader of the firm's tax, pensions, employment and incentives practice for a period of four years, from November 2021. Gilbert advises companies across all sectors on remuneration and incentives, with a particular interest in remuneration design, governance and taxation. She succeeds Dan Neidle who is retiring from the firm’s partnership in May 2022. He will then continue with the firm as special counsel.
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints Peter Abbott as a tax partner in the London office. Abbott has a wide-ranging tax practice, with a particular focus on private equity transactions, and public and private mergers and acquisitions. He also advises investment fund clients on structuring private equity and special opportunity investments, and on related refinancings and exits. He joins the firm from Macfarlanes.
• Orrick appoints David Klass as a partner in the firm’s tax practice. Klass, formerly of Hunton Andrews Kurth, advises on the tax aspects of UK, cross-border and international corporate and finance transactions. He will be based in the firm’s London office.
• BDO appoints Michelle Wilson as a tax partner. Wilson, formerly of EY, has more than 20 years’ experience advising clients on global compliance and reporting. She will be based in the Midlands.
• The WestBridge Group appoints Akshay Vaghela as a senior tax associate. He joins the firm from Wilson Wright.
• Tilney Smith & Williamson appoints Adam West as a partner and Clare Halligan as a director in the firm’s Birmingham tax team. West, formerly of RSM, has a wide range of private client experience. Halligan, formerly of Grant Thornton, has 10 years' tax dispute and resolution experience.
• Macfarlanes appoints Bezhan Salehy as a tax policy specialist. Bezhan joins the firm from HM Treasury where he was head of international corporate tax.

1 November 2021

• KPMG appoints Candice Nichol, formerly of Simmons & Simmons, as a deal advisory tax partner based in London.
• BDO promotes Simon Bird, Tahir Ebrahim, Talia Greenbaum, Helen Griffiths, Carrie Rutland and Ben Tarry to partner in the firm’s tax team.
  
• Kreston Global appoints Rupert Moyle as chair of the global indirect tax group. Moyle has over 30 years of experience as a VAT specialist and has been head of VAT at Kreston Global member firm Kreston Reeves since 2015, becoming partner in 2017.
• Armstrong Watson appoints corporate tax specialist David Taylor to lead the firm’s tax consulting team in Glasgow. He joins the firm from PwC.

20 October 2021

• Azets promotes Naomi Wells to tax partner. Wells specialises in international private client issues, particularly involving domicile, residence and trust matters. She is based in the firm’s London office.
• Avalara appoints Alex Baulf as senior director, global indirect tax. Baulf, formerly of Grant Thornton, has extensive experience in UK and EU VAT and international indirect tax consultancy. In his new role, he will lead engagement with policy leaders and play a leadership role in driving the firm’s growth.
• Tilney Smith & Williamson appoints Adam Smith as a partner in its professional services business with a remit to build a new US/UK transatlantic tax team at the firm. Smith is a dual qualified US and UK tax adviser specialising in advising US-connected individuals and businesses in all aspects of cross-border US and UK tax issues. He joins the firm from Blick Rothenberg.
• Mercer & Hole appoints Mark Baxter as corporate & business tax senior manager. Baxter, formerly of Cooper Parry, has nearly 25 years’ experience as a tax specialist and he has worked with OMBs and private clients across Northamptonshire and the surrounding region. 

11 October 2021

• McDermott Will & Emery UK appoints Kevin Cummings, formerly of Deloitte, as the partner-in-charge to head its UK tax team. Cummings has significant experience of advising on domestic and international taxation across M&A, private equity, mainstream corporate matters, financial services, capital markets and private investing. 
• Armstrong Watson appoints James Fraser as tax partner. Fraser, formerly of Mazars, has significant experience of advising OMBs and has broad experience of business tax. He will head up the firm’s tax team in Leeds. The firm promotes Becky Bowness  to tax partner in Cumbria, and she now leads the firm’s corporate tax practice.
• White & Case appoints Tim Bracksiek as a partner in the firm’s global tax practice, based in Frankfurt. Bracksiek’s tax practice covers transactional, structuring, advisory and controversy work.
• Malcolm Bacchus has been elected ICAEW vice president for 2022/23. He will take over the role from current vice president Mark Rhys in June 2022. Based in London, Bacchus is the principal of Baccma Consulting. He currently chairs the Institute’s ethics standards committee and is a member of the technical strategy board. 

4 October 2021

• Crowe promotes Rob Janering to corporate VAT partner. Janering has almost twenty years’ experience as a VAT professional. In his new role he will lead nationally on VAT matters within the retail and e-commerce, manufacturing and TMT sectors.
• KPMG UK promotes James Prince to head of indirect tax. Prince was made a partner in the firm in 2013 and is based in London.
• Saffery Champness appoints Kate McGowan as a VAT manager. McGowan, formerly of Galloways Accounting, will be based in London.
• Mid-tier accountancy firm Gerald Edelman promotes tax specialist Amal Shah to partner. Shah’s practice focuses on corporate and transactional work, supporting a wide portfolio of clients ranging from corporates, to multinationals as well as HNWIs and their families, both in the UK and globally.
• Kirkland & Ellis promotes Art Ward to corporate tax partner in the firm’s London office.  Ward advises a variety of businesses on a wide range of tax and structuring matters, with particular experience in advising fund managers on tax and structuring issues relating to their funds, from inception structuring through to the acquisitions and disposals of fund investments.
• Goodwin promotes Charlotte Haywood to tax partner in the firm’s London office. Haywood specialises in private investment funds work, advising managers and investors on domestic and international tax aspects of structuring and investing into fund products, secondary transactions, and restructurings. 

28 September 2021

• Alastair Hudson joins Addington Chambers as an associate member in a move said to add ‘academic lustre’ to the chamber. Hudson is a specialist in finance law and regulation and trusts law. He is a respected legal academic and visiting professor of law at the University of Reading. Addington Chamber is a ‘virtual’ international barristers’ chambers specialising in tax and revenue law and related chancery and commercial matters. It was set up in June 2020 and now has 17 members.
• RSM promotes tax partner Claire Spencer to head of corporate tax in the Midlands. Spencer has 17 years’ experience working with large corporates and international groups and will be based in Birmingham.
• Slaughter and May elects Deborah Finkler as the firm’s first managing partner. The new role of managing partner will take on the functions of the practice partner, together with the strategic elements of the executive partner’s role. Finkler, whose practice covers commercial litigation as well as domestic and cross-border investigations, will take up the role on 1 May 2022.

21 September 2021

• Following the prime minister’s cabinet reshuffle Lucy Frazer QC MP is appointed financial secretary to the Treasury, replacing Jesse Norman MP. Simon Clarke MP returns to the Treasury as chief secretary; he was previously exchequer secretary to the Treasury from 2019 to early 2020. Helen Whately MP is appointed exchequer secretary to the Treasury.
• Cowgills appoints Gemma-McCaldon Gower as a specialist VAT director in the firm’s tax team. Gower, who joins from Crowe, previously worked with HMRC and Deloitte.
• Wendy Andrews, formerly of Bishop Fleming, joins Saffery Champness as VAT director.

13 September 2021

• Deloitte appoints Daniel Gallon as insurance tax director. Gallon joins from the Association of British Insurers.
• DLA Piper appoints transfer pricing expert Melissa Kuster as a director in its London office. She joins from EY.
• Milsted Langdon appoints Patrick Collins as a tax director in the firm’s Bristol office. Collins has more than 20 years’ experience working in private client tax matters, including time spent at two big four firms. He joins from Saffery Champness.
• Mishcon de Reya has officially begun the IPO process with a view to listing on the London Stock Exchange after the proposals were approved by at least three quarters of the partnership. The firm first announced in April this year that it had brought in JP Morgan to advise on a possible listing.  As part of the offering every member of staff at the firm will become a shareholder.
• The Irish Tax Institute appoints Deloitte tax partner Karen Frawley as president. Frawley has more than 17 years’ experience advising multinational groups investing in Ireland and Irish-based groups on outward investments.

6 September 2021

• Mazars promotes tax specialist Prasam Patel to partner. Patel will continue to lead the firm’s UK real estate business, while also growing a supporting tax team. 

27 August 2021

• KPMG appoints Tim Sarson as its new UK head of tax policy. Sarson moves into the role alongside his position as a value chain management partner and has over 20 years’ experience advising businesses on international tax. He succeeds Melissa Geiger who is taking on a global tax role as head of strategic corporates.
• Azets promotes Lucy Higgs to partner. Higgs has over 20 years’ experience working with high net worth individuals, partnerships, entrepreneurs and owner managed businesses, advising on income and capital taxes planning including residence and domicile matters.
• Charter Tax appoints Ray McCann as a consultant. McCann has more than 40 years’ experience in UK and international tax issues and is a fellow and past president of the CIOT.
• KPMG UK launches a new tax practice in London to support US expatriates in the UK and across Europe. Linus Ostberg, formerly of Moore Global US Tax Services, will build and lead the new team which will focus on advising high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families with US tax obligations.
• HMRC appoints Jonathan Athow as the new director general for the customer strategy and tax design group. Athow is currently deputy national statistician and director general for economic statistics at the Office for National Statistics and will join HMRC from the beginning of October.
• Midlands based accountancy and business advisory firm Smith Cooper joins PKF International, effective 1 September. The firm, which will be rebranded to PKF Smith Cooper, has over 250 team members.
• Sainsbury’s appoints David Peach as head of tax. Peach joins the company from Fortive Corporation.
• Brit Insurance appoints Aarti Leadbetter, formerly of Lloyd’s, as head of tax.
• Shell promotes Andrew Enever to head of tax, trading & supply.

26 July 2021

• DLA Piper appoints contentious tax lawyer Jason Collins as head of its international tax disputes practice, based in London. Collins practice focuses on the resolution of complex disputes. He represents corporate and individual clients who are the subject of a tax audit in all aspects of direct tax and VAT, as well as tax treaty and state aid disputes involving multiple jurisdictions. He has helped corporates engaged by HMRC in its high risk corporates programme and also represents individuals and companies under criminal investigation. He will join the firm in August from Pinsent Masons.
• Saffery Champness appoints Chris Luckett as a tax partner. Luckett, formerly of KPMG, has more than 20 years’ experience providing tax advice to private clients, advising on issues such as succession planning and the tax efficient structuring of investments and transactions. He will be based in the firm’s Harrogate office.
• Stonehage Fleming acquires the private client services business of Maitland, a privately owned global advisory, administration and family office firm. Three members of Maitland Group’s management team will join Stonehage Fleming, including Herman Troskie, who will head a new corporate, legal and tax advisory services division and join the group’s executive committee.

19 July 2021

• EY acquires Lane4 Management Group Holdings Ltd (‘Lane4’), a UK consultancy specialising in leadership and team development, organisational performance, transformation and culture change. Lane4’s 130 staff will join the EY people advisory services teams operating as EY Lane4.
• Squire Patton Boggs appoints Charles Briand as a partner in its tax strategy & benefits practice group in Paris. Briand’s practice focuses on corporate and transaction tax, cross-border M&A, the tax aspects of financing arrangements, and tax structuring and integration projects. He joins from Orrick Rambaud Martel.
• KPMG UK appoints tax disputes lawyer James Drake-Linney as manager (barrister). He joins the firm from Macfarlanes. 
• Saffery Champness appoints private client and trust specialist Fiona Graham as a consultant in its tax team. Graham joins from Boodle Hatfield where she worked for 18 years, most recently as senior partner in its private client and tax team. 

12 July 2021

• Blick Rothenberg promotes partner and head of the firm’s private client team, Caroline Le Jeune, to head of tax. Le Jeune has over 20 years’ experience working with high net worth individuals, their families, trusts and other related entities, advising on personal tax, inheritance tax and trust issues, with a particular focus on non-UK domiciled individuals.
• Azets appoints Ray Abercromby as tax partner and Andrew Cockman as tax director in the firm’s Midlands tax team. Abercromby joins Azets from Smith & Williamson, where he has spent the last 14 years working on corporate reconstructions. Cockman, formerly of AMC Tax Consulting Ltd, has extensive experience in UK inheritance tax, UK resident and offshore trust taxation, and non-UK domiciles.
• MHA Moore and Smalley appoints Lee Pimlett as senior tax manager in the firm’s Liverpool office. Pimlett, formerly of UHY Hacker Young, specialises in research and development tax issues.
• Grant Thornton promotes  Michael Gilmore to partner in the firm’s transaction tax team. Gilmore has been with the firm for almost 15 years and has extensive experience working on all elements of mergers and acquisitions tax, principally due diligence and structuring transactions.
• EY appoints Stuart Sinclair as a partner in its international tax and transaction services practice. Sinclair, formerly of Akin Gump, has extensive experience across a broad range of practice areas and has advised some of the largest global credit funds on fund formations and supported the structuring of numerous complex cross-border transactions. In his new role he will focus on building out the financial services credit fund and restructuring team.
• EY adds 103 new equity partners to its UK partnership. The new cohort includes 65 partner promotions, the firm’s largest intake of home-grown talent in the last ten years, along with 38 external hires.
• Kreston Reeves promotes private client tax specialist Dan Mundroina to partner. Mundroina specialises in personal tax, inheritance tax and trusts and estates. He also leads the firm’s dedicated family investment team.
• R&D tax relief consultancy ForrestBrown appoints Sara Brigden as managing director. Brigden takes over the role from the company’s founder Simon Brown, who becomes chairman of the business. Brown will be joined by co-founder Lisa-Marie Smith as the firm’s new vice chairman. Founded eight years ago, ForrestBrown has offices in London and Bristol currently employs over 120 people. 

5 July 2021

• Grant Thornton promotes five new tax partners. They are: Katy Bond (global mobility services); David Francis (tax dispute resolution); Nick Garside (indirect tax team, London); David Willott (south region corporate tax team) and Paul Wilson (indirect tax team, north west).
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints corporate tax adviser Robert Sharpe as partner. He joins from Clifford Chance.
• Jacqui Stewart joins Lonza Specialty Ingredients as global head of tax. Stewart joins the company from Ferguson plc.
• Kingsley Napley appoints Laura Harper as a partner in its private client team. Harper advises both UK resident and non-domiciled individuals, families and trustees on a wide variety of UK tax, trust law and international estate planning issues. She joins the firm from McDermott Will & Emery.
• Blick Rothenberg promotes Winnie Cao and Vanesha Kistoo to partner in the firm’s global mobility team. Trevor Harris is promoted to partner and will lead Blick Rothenberg’s trust practice.
• MHA Moore and Smalley appoints Rachel Somerville as corporate tax senior manager. Somerville, formerly of Azets, will advise clients across the North West region on a range of tax compliance and planning issues.
• Baker McKenzie promotes Dr Stephanie Pantelidaki to partner. Pantelidaki is an experienced transfer pricing professional and heads the firm’s financial services transfer pricing (FSTP) group. She is based in London.
• HW Fisher appoints Gerry Myton as partner and head of indirect taxes. Myton, formerly of the UK VAT Advisory Ltd, has extensive experience of assisting companies on VAT issues, with a particular emphasis on companies setting up and trading in the UK and from the UK into Europe.

24 June 2021

• Latham & Watkins appoints Helen Lethaby as a partner in the firm’s tax department. Lethaby, who joins from the firm from Freshfields, has more than 25 years’ experience advising clients on a variety of complex corporate tax matter. Her experience spans a number of high growth sectors, including technology, telecoms, infrastructure, insurance and fintech.

21 June 2021

• Wedlake Bell and Moon Beever agree to merge with effect from 12 July 2021. Wedlake Bell is a top 100 City law firm with 60 partners operating from its central location near St Pauls. Moon Beever has 11 partners based at its Gray’s Inn offices.  
• haysmacintyre launches a new tax disputes and resolutions team covering all forms of HMRC enquiries, ranging from personal accounts issues to corporate affairs and family office investigations. The new team will be headed up by private client tax director Danielle Ford who specialises in HMRC enquires, disputes and resolutions.
• Addington Chambers, the ‘virtual’ international barristers’ chambers specialising in tax and revenue law, expands its operations in the north of England and east Asia with the addition of two new members, taking the set to 16 members a year after its launch. Andy Wood is a barrister at ETC Tax and has wdie-ranging tax experience. Ross Harman is a barrister at Lee & Ko, one of the largest Korean law firms. Harman, the only English barrister currently practising in South Korea, advises clients on Korean commercial and corporate law generally, with a particular specialism in tax, including international tax and general tax consulting.

12 June 2021

• Deloitte promotes 79 new partners in the UK, of which 13 are in tax & legal. They are: Steffan Adfeldt (UK and international corporate tax); Shaun Curtis (personal tax); Rumi Das (global workforce specialist); John Egan (real estate M&A tax specialist); Ian Goodsell (private client tax adviser); Iqbal Jit (executive reward specialist); Katie Kenny (executive remuneration specialist); Karen Landells (business tax); David O’Kane (indirect tax); Andrew Surrel (international tax); Geraint Williams (real estate M&A tax specialist); Louise Wilson (mobility tax specialist) and Samir Yahiaoui (international Tax and Controversy).
• Humphreys Law promotes corporate tax specialist Annette Beresford to partner and head of Tax. Beresford’s practice covers a wide spectrum of taxation, including corporate finance and M&A transactions, venture capital reliefs, employment taxes and management incentive schemes.
• Crowe appoints Emma Locken as corporate tax partner. Locken, formerly of PwC, has over 15 years’ experience advising UK and multinational businesses on their direct tax obligations. She will be based in the firm’s London office.

1 June 2021

• Harbottle & Lewis promotes Siena Gold to partner in the firm’s private client and tax team. Gold advises individuals and family offices, trustees and financial institutions.
• Wilson Wright appoints tax disputes resolution specialist Jessica McLellan as a partner. McLellan, formerly of Blick Rothenberg, has more than 15 years’ experience, including at a big four firm and as a policy adviser at HMRC.
• Alvarez & Marsal Taxand appoints Nick Walton, Jack Hollyman and John Bettley-Smith as senior directors within its infrastructure investors service team. All three join the firm from Deloitte’s M&A and funds tax group.
• Rees Pollock, founded in 1990, officially becomes the financial services team at Blick Rothenberg from 1 June. The Rees Pollock name will no longer be used.
• Azets appoints Paul Attridge as regional tax partner for the North Thames and South Midlands offices. Attridge, formerly of accountancy firm Bright Grahame Murray, has experience in both corporate and personal tax, advising small and medium owner managed businesses  as well as some larger corporates. 
• Shoosmiths appoints corporate M&A tax specialist Laura Board as a partner in the firm’s London office. She joins from Bird & Bird.
• BDO appoints Nadine Bogard as a senior tax manager in its private client services’ team. Bogard joins from Smith & Williamson.
• EY appoints Kathryn Gray as a director in the firm’s insurance tax team. Gray, formerly of Deloitte, focuses on providing tax compliance, audit and advisory services to specialty market clients.
• Kirkland & Ellis appoints Peter Abbott as a tax partner in the firm’s London office. Abbott, formerly of Macfarlanes, focuses his wide-ranging tax practice on private equity transactions, and public and private mergers and acquisitions. He also advises investment fund clients on structuring private equity and special opportunity investments, and on related refinancings and exits.
• Keystone Law appoints Andrew Terry as a tax partner. Terry advises on all aspects of international and UK domestic corporate tax law, particularly for clients in Russian/CIS markets. He joins the firm from Edwin Coe.

17 May 2021

• Clifford Chance promotes Julian Feiner to director of tax. He advises on UK and international tax, with a particular interest in corporate structuring and financing issues.
• Catherine Anne Fairpo is appointed a judge of the first-tier tribunal by the senior president of tribunals, the Right Honourable Sir Keith Lindblom. Judge Fairpo has been assigned to the tax chamber with effect from 1 June 2021.
  
• Blick Rothenberg joins Allinial Global, a member-based association with 248 members worldwide.
• Winners of this year’s Tolley’s Taxation Awards are: Mark Groom, partner at Deloitte (outstanding contribution to tax); Sofia Thomas of Thomas Consulting (rising star); and Paul Aplin OBE (lifetime achievement winner).
• US based employment law firm Ogletree Deakins and KPMG Law in Germany are forming a global alliance to provide businesses with global workforce solutions.
  

10 May 2021

• DLA Piper promotes 44 to partner globally, including the following six in tax: Matt Davies (London); Victor Kampel (Sao Paulo); Andrew Lewis (Johannesburg); Antti Paloniemi (Helsinki); Rishi Sodhi (Los Angeles) and Ryan Starr (Boston).
• Clifford Chance promotes tax specialist Nolan Groenland to counsel in Amsterdam.
• HW Fisher appoints four new partners to its tax department. Tajinder Bhalla has experience advising a range of international businesses on tax planning initiatives, as well as considerable experience in the field of SDLT. He is also a qualified barrister. Stevie Heafford has a wide range of tax experience, including in trusts and estates, personal and corporate tax matters and in her new role will work with owner managed business and high net worth individuals providing high quality tax advice. Melanie Hicks, formerly of Markel Tax, has more than 25 years’ experience in both practice and in industry working in audit and tax roles. Her experience centres around advising family and owner managed businesses and their associated private individuals. Richard Morley will head up the firm’s tax dispute resolution business. He has over 30 years of experience in resolving tax investigations and disputes with HMRC, covering private clients, corporates and charities.
• Moore Kingston Smith promotes Claire Roberts to tax partner. Roberts has experience in advising individuals, families and their businesses, and co-manages the private client team.
• Advisory firm Dow Schofield Watts launches DSW Tax Advisory. The new service will be led by Dave Waddington, formerly tax partner at Haines Watts, and will advise owner-managed businesses and high net worth individuals on issues including remuneration planning, R&D tax credits, capital gains, inheritance tax, succession planning, acquisitions, disposals, corporate restructurings and tax investigations.
• Deloitte promotes Lisa Stott as the new managing partner for tax and legal. Effective from 1 June, Stott will be the first woman to lead Deloitte’s tax and legal service line. She has been at the firm for 32 years, advising and supporting clients, and was most recently global lead for international tax and business tax advisory.
• Taylor Wessing promotes Caroline Tayler to partner in the firm’s private client team. Tayler advises on all manner of contentious trust and succession matters including the resolution of disputes and court applications in relation to the formation and administration of trusts, wills, tax planning and the administration of estates. She has extensive international experience advising in relation to complex multijurisdictional trust and estate disputes.

4 May 2021

• Maurice Turnor Gardner promotes Jennifer Emms and Claire Weeks to partner. Emms advises on a range of private wealth matters, including the taxation of individuals and trusts, estate planning and Wills and also advises on charity law. Weeks is a specialist in tax, wealth preservation and estate planning advice for high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals and their families, as well as the trustees, private banks and family offices which support them.
• Pinsent Masons promotes Jake Landman to partner. Landman specialises in tax disputes and has extensive practical experience in all aspects of the tax litigation process. He has worked on the team’s most high profile cases involving both direct and indirect tax.
• DLA Piper appoints Jacques Wantz as international group head of the firm’s tax practice, with effect from 1 May. Wantz has significant experience in international and corporate tax law, focusing on the tax aspects of cross-border private equity, real estate and debt investments and the tax structuring of regulated and unregulated investment funds. He is based in Luxembourg.
• Charles Russell Speechlys hires an international tax team in London, led by new partner Robert Reymond. Reymond is a tax specialist with over 20 years’ experience advising financial institutions and high-net-worth families in Latin America, Canada, and Europe on international wealth structuring, with a focus on tax, information exchange, estate planning and the international regulatory environment. He will be joined at the firm by Leigh Nicoll (senior sssociate), Emma Tyrrell (senior associate) and Oliver Cooper (policy lead). Reymond and his team join Charles Russell Speechlys from Stikeman Elliott.
• Charles Russell Speechlys also promotes Hugh Gunson to partner. Gunson has a broad practice focusing on contentious tax matters, including HMRC enquiries and litigation before the tax tribunals and higher courts across all areas of tax. He also advises clients on tax-related claims for mistake and rectification and tax-related professional negligence claims. The firm also promotes Catrin Harrison to senior associate in its private client team.

26 April 2021

• Goodwin appoints David Irvine as a partner in the firm’s tax practice. Irvine, formerly of Kirkland, has over 20 years’ experience representing multi-asset managers, private equity, infrastructure, real estate, debt and hedge fund sponsors and management teams on the domestic and international aspects of fund structuring, tax efficient incentivisation arrangements and tax issues associated with their investment programs. He additionally advises on the tax aspects of financing and restructuring transactions, particularly in the context of financially troubled debtors. He will be based in the firm’s London office.
• Lubbock Fine appoints Phil Blackburn as tax partner. Blackburn has over over 30 years’ experience advising businesses and private clients. In his new role he will lead tax services for owner managed businesses and corporate clients. He joins the firm from Lewis Golden.
• Cooper Parry appoints James Peck as tax partner. Peck, formerly of Grant Thornton, has over 15 years’ experience supporting high growth, VC and PE-backed businesses as they scale.
• Allen & Overy promotes Rens Bondrager to tax partner (Amsterdam) and Franz Kerger to tax counsel (Luxembourg), effective 1 May.
• Linklaters promotes Joakim-Antoine Charvet (Luxembourg) and Max Levine (New York) to tax partner, effective 1 May.
• North-East based firm Clive Owen promotes Lee Watson to tax partner. 

19 April 2021

• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer promotes Sarah Bond to partner with effect from 1 May. Bond’s practice focuses on tax investigations and disputes, across both direct and indirect taxes. She has extensive experience of high value, complex disputes across a variety of sectors, including in particular diverted profits tax and transfer pricing investigations. She is based in the firm’s London office.
• Simmons & Simmons promotes Zoe Arnautov to partner with effect from 1 May. Arnautov has wide-ranging expertise in tax advisory and transactional work and also leads the corporate tax practice in the firm’s Bristol office.
• Saffery Champness promotes Margi Campbell and Hannah Mazrae to partner. Campbell is based in Inverness and provides advice and tax planning to a client base that includes wealthy entrepreneurs, high net worth individuals, professional partnerships, family businesses and landed estate clients. Mazrae is based in Bournemouth and specialises in providing advice and support to a range of clients, including landed estates, agribusinesses and the commercial sector, working with directors, trustees and individuals on accounting, audit and taxation matters.
• Hartley Foster joins Addington Chambers. Foster, formerly head of tax disputes at Fieldfisher, has specialised in contentious tax matters for over 20 years, having started his professional career at Pump Court Tax Chambers. He undertakes work in relation to all taxes, and has particular expertise in tax avoidance, judicial review and professional negligence claims relating to tax. Addington Chambers additionally takes on two associate members, Andrew Noble and Dominic Hodge, taking the number of members at the new set to fourteen.
• Alvarez & Marsal Taxand appoints Fabrizio Lolliri as managing director and global head of transfer pricing. Lolliri, who is based in New York, has  20 years’ experience in transfer pricing across multiple markets and industries. He returns to A&M after serving eight years at Hogan Lovell as global head of transfer pricing.
• David Southern QC, of Temple Tax Chambers, joins Field Court Tax Chambers from 1 May. Southern has a wide-ranging tax practice covering both direct taxes and VAT, and specialises in corporate finance.
• PKF Francis Clark promotes Liam Dushynsky to indirect tax partner.
• BDO appoints Caroline Harwood, formerly of Crowe UK, as a partner in the employment tax team. Harwood has 25 years’ experience advising clients on employment tax and share plans. She will be based in London.
• CMS promotes 52 new partners globally, including the following in tax: Stéphanie Houx (Brussels); Amélie Retureau (Paris) and Beatrice Fimiani (Rome).
• Charter Tax Consulting Ltd appoints Ray McCann as a consultant. McCann has more than 40 years’ experience in UK and international tax issues, is a past president of the CIOT and was previously chair of professional standards. He is a former HMRC inspector. He retired as a partner of JHA in 2020.

12 April 2021

• Krekar Kawani launches Touchstone Advisory, an independent tax advisory specialising in tax valuation services for SMEs and mid-tier private equity houses. Kawani, formerly of PwC, is a tax valuation specialist with expertise in providing tax valuations and commercial management incentive plans services across multiple sectors and tax jurisdictions. The launch is being supported by Ian Logan, formerly of PwC, who becomes senior consultant at the firm.
• Mishcon de Reya promotes Waqar Shah to legal director in its dispute resolution department. Shah’s focus is on high value complex indirect and direct tax cases and matters concerning tax avoidance. He has considerable experience in judicial reviews and group litigation orders and has assisted and managed high profile matters at all levels from the tax tribunal through to the supreme court.
• Grant Thornton promotes David Francis to partner and head of tax dispute resolution.
• RSM promotes corporate tax specialists Leonid Khristoforov (London), Miranda Sharp (Guildford) and Rupert Guppy (Southampton) to partner in its national tax practice.
• Skadden promotes Sarah Beth Rizzo (Chicago) and Thomas F. Wood (Washington DC) to tax partner.
• Harbottle & Lewis appoints Marcus Parker as a partner in its private capital practice. Parker has more than 20 years’ experience in the private client industry as both a lawyer and, for the last seven years, as a professional trustee in the Cayman Islands. Before moving to the Cayman Islands, he was a founding partner of London-based boutique private client law firm New Quadrant Partners.

6 April 2021

• Alvarez & Marsal Taxand appoints Stuart Twinberrow as a managing director to its financial investors tax practice. Twinberrow has  more than 20 years’ experience in corporate and international tax, having advised a significant number of private equity and financial services clients. He was previously a partner at Deloitte, where he led the London M&A tax team. 
• Mackrell Solicitors promotes senior associate solicitor Natalie Payne as head of the private client team and private client lawyer Jeffrey Cohen as head of the wealth and succession planning team.
• Independent accountancy firm Grunberg & Co promotes Nimesh Patel to tax partner. Patel practice focuses on corporate and transactional work, through which he supports clients all over the world.
• Mazars appoints Mark Hubbard as partner in the financial services tax team, based in London. Hubbard has previous experience as global head of tax at Barclays, and will lead the banking & capital markets (BCM) sub-sector in the Tax team.
• Hillier Hopkins promotes Ruth Corkin to principal. Corkin is a highly experienced VAT and indirect tax expert and has sat on the government’s alternative arrangements for Northern Ireland committee. She is the current technical chair of the VAT Practitioners Group. The firm additionally appoints Alpa Adatia as an assistant VAT manager, following 11 years working for HMRC as a higher executive officer. She brings to the firm a detailed knowledge and understanding of VAT and the workings of HMRC.
• IFS director Paul Johnson will lead a commission into the possibility of giving Stormont more taxation powers. Northern Ireland is the only one of the devolved regions to have not yet conducted a comprehensive taxation review of this sort, and its conclusions are expected to be published before next year's Northern Ireland Assembly election.

26 March 2021

• Lubna Shuja becomes the Law Society of England and Wales’ vice president. Shuja is principal solicitor specialising in professional discipline and regulation at Legal Swan Solicitors in Birmingham.
• Knights acquires Mundays, an independent commercial law firm with a strong corporate, real estate and private client offering, based in Surrey. The acquisition sees 34 fee earners joining Knights.

25 March 2021

• Elizabeth Wilson QC of Pump Court Tax Chambers is formally appointed silk. Wilson practises in all areas of revenue law with particular emphasis on personal and corporate tax. She is the first female silk for the set.
• Smith & Williamson appoints Majid Hussain as a partner in its private client tax team. Hussain, formerly of BDO, advises on all areas of private client tax, with a specific focus on international families with complex overseas structures, such as trusts, including those from the Middle East. He also advises private equity executives on their fund interests.
• Financial services boutique, Kibbe & Orbe merges with international law firm Crowell & Moring. As part of the transaction, 24 lawyers will become part of Crowell & Moring’s New York, London, and Washington, DC offices. The transaction is expected to close in April.

15 March 2021

• Mazars opens a new office in Newcastle.
• DLA Piper appoints Erik Lind, formerly of Deloitte Peru, as a partner to lead its tax practice in Peru and co-lead its private client practice. 
• Amanda Blanc, CEO of Aviva, is appointed as HM Treasury’s new women in finance champion and will spearhead efforts to boost gender diversity across UK financial services. She replaces Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia, who will continue to support the charter as an advisor.

12 March 2021

• Goodwin appoints Dulcie Daly as a partner in the firm’s tax practice. Daly, formerly of Kirkland & Ellis, has 15 years’ experience advising sponsor clients and their portfolio companies, with a focus on UK and international tax planning. She provides tax-related advice in the context of cross-border private equity and M&A transactions and restructurings and in the tax aspects of debt finance and capital markets transactions. She will be based in the firm’s London office.
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges appoints David F. Levy as a partner in the firm’s global tax practice. Levy, formerly of Skadden, has more than two decades experience in real estate and other transactional areas. He will be based in Weil’s New York office.

8 March 2021

• The chancellor appoints Paul Aplin OBE to the board of The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), following the resignation of Dame Teresa Graham DBE as a board member.
• Azets acquires Roffe Swayne, an accountancy and tax advisory firm, now trading as Azets, based in Surrey, and one of the largest independent chartered accountants in the south east.
• Shoosmiths launches Shoosmiths Connected Services, providing non-legal products to its clients. The new venture has eight product categories, comprising a range of services from across the firm’s divisions.
• Moore Kingston Smith appoints Melanie Reed as tax partner. Reed, formerly of RSM, has more than 25 years’ experience in advising entrepreneurial businesses and their shareholders, from start-ups through to exit and sale.
• HW Fisher promotes Adam Bonell to partner in the firm’s private client team. Bonell advises businesses and HNWIs and families, with a particular interest in cross-border tax matters. In his new role, he will focus on growing the firm’s international tax advisory practice.

19 February 2021

• Shaw Gibbs appoints Phil Dickinson as tax partner. Dickinson, formerly of Charterhouse Accountants, has over 10 years’ experience advising owner managed businesses on direct tax issues and has a particular specialism in property. In his new role he will lead and develop the firm’s corporate tax team across Oxford and London.
• Johnston Carmichael promotes Erin Davis as the firm’s new head of international corporate tax. Davis, who joined the firm in 2019, has over 18 years’ experience in international, corporate, M&A and personal tax. She will be based in the firm’s Aberdeen office.  

15 February 2021

• Deloitte appoints Amanda Tickel as its new head of tax policy. Tickel, who has 25 years’ experience in indirect and international, tax will lead a team of 23 tax and trade experts advising clients on UK and global tax policy issues across personal, employment, corporate and indirect taxes. She takes over the role from Daniel Lyons, who has retired from the firm after 24 years. 
• EY Law appoints Jan Thornbury as UK head of legal transformation in the firm’s legal managed services division. Thornbury has 25 years’ experience in consultancy and in-house, director-level roles, including at Addleshaw Goddard and KPMG.

12 February 2021

• Gateley Capitus appoints Peter Corley as an associate director and new head of its R&D tax team. Corley, formerly of MPA, has over 12 years’ experience in the tax credits, patent box and innovation funding sector. He will be based in the firm’s London office.
• Personal tax app untied appoints Jonathan Yeomans as its tax technical officer. Prior to his appointment, Yeomans worked at HMRC for 32 years, including as inspector of taxes. Most recently he was HMRC tax technical risk lead and a member of the HMRC national project board.
• US firm Armstrong Teasdale acquires London firm Kerman & Co, and its 50 lawyers and staff.
• Mercer & Hole promotes Charmain Alway to private client director. Alway specialises in all aspects of estate planning, probate, inheritance tax and trusts.
• KPMG UK confirms that Bill Michael, its chair and senior partner, has resigned and will leave the firm at the end of this month. Bina Mehta, as senior elected board member, becomes acting chair of the board and Mary O’Connor, head of clients and markets, assumes Michael’s day-to-day executive responsibilities as acting senior partner. The firm will undertake a leadership election in due course.

10 February 2021

• EY acquires the business of Frank Hirth. The firm provides UK and US personal tax services. Both its employees (circa 200) and over 5,000 clients will form part of the acquired business. The transaction is subject to certain closing conditions and, if satisfied, is likely to complete in the first half of 2021.
• McCarthy Denning appoints Iain Morpeth and Michael Wistow as co-heads of its international private equity real estate practice. Wistow, formerly of White & Case, also becomes the firm’s global head of tax. An international and domestic tax lawyer, Wistow has an established practice built over more than 25 years at top law firms. His practice is transactional, structuring and advisory in nature, covering corporate, finance, funds, PE, restructuring and real estate transactions with particular specialisations in the real estate and finance industries.
• Following  Janet Yellen’s appointment as US Treasury Secretary, the US Treasury announces David Lipton, former International Monetary Fund official, as a senior counselor to Yellen. He will be joined by Itai Grinberg and Tom West, whose backgrounds are in tax policy, and federal reserve lawyer Laurie Schaffe. With her new team in place, it is anticipated that Yellen is expected to push for broad changes to global tax enforcement and regulation.
• Tax barrister Patrick Cannon, formerly of Old Square Tax Chambers, has launched Cannon Chambers. This is a ‘work from anywhere’ (WFA) chambers without the high overheads of a presence in one of London’s Inns of Court.
• Addington Chambers, a ‘virtual’ international barristers’ chambers specialising in tax and revenue law, adds two new members, including its first silk. Michael Ashe QC SC, formerly of 9 Stone Buildings, is also a practising silk in Ireland. Michael’s practice largely involves business and finance.  Before practising at the Bar, he worked for the Inland Revenue and then in investment banking.  His practice involves a broad area of law including contract, conflict of laws, company law, financial services, market abuse and tax. Lynne Counsell, also was previously at 9 Stone Buildings, specialises in private client and financial services.
• Mazars appoints corporate tax expert Lucy Redding as a partner in the firm’s tax team. She joins from PwC.  
  
• Addleshaw Goddard opens a new office in Paris, it’s first in France. A total of 22 lawyers, including six partners, hired from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner and K&L Gates, will offer expertise in corporate, commercial, real estate and dispute resolution.

1 February 2021

• Bishop Fleming promotes Rob Pearce to partner. Pearce, who is based in the West Midlands, is a business tax expert with expertise in R&D tax credits.
• Renata Ardous, former head of financial services insurance tax at Mazars, joins Chanel as head of global transfer pricing.
• Following her recent retirement from Herbert Smith Freehills, former tax partner Heather Gething continues to sit as a judge in the tax tribunal and to advise some of her long-term clients at Heather Gething Consulting LLP.
• DLA Piper appoints transfer pricing specialist Antoine Faure as a partner in its Paris office. Faure joins the firm from CMS Francis Lefebvre Avocats.
• Streets Chartered Accountants appoints Mustafa Rafik as a corporate tax partner. Rafik, who joins from Baldwins, specialises in the tax implications of corporate restructures, mergers and acquisitions, employee incentives, R&D tax relief claim and capital allowance claims.
• Cooper Parry appoints Linda Marston-Weston as a transaction tax partner. Marston-Weston has more than 35 years’ experience in advising individuals, PE houses and companies on all types of transactions. She joins the firm from EY, where she was transaction tax leader and head of tax in the Midlands. She will begin her new role on 1 March 2021.
• Mazars promotes Ian Goodwin and Zoe Peck to partner. Goodwin specialises in helping businesses with employment tax, IR35, reward, and, more recently, CJRS matters. Peck specialises in advising business owners on both their personal and business tax strategy and implementation.
• MHA Carpenter Box promotes Rachel Pearce to partner within its tax services team. Pearce specialises in the construction and real estate sectors. The firm additionally appoints Anthony Davies as partner at Gatwick following the merger of his tax advice and planning business with MHA Carpenter Box. He has in-depth knowledge of tax planning, technology and cloud services.

25 January 2021

• Insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting firm Gallaher appoints Giles Hambly as a producer in its major risks practice team. Hambly, formerly of Norton Rose Fulbright, has extensive experience of advising on pre-sale restructures, diverted profits tax, permanent establishment risks, capital restructures, domestic and cross-border acquisitions plus general international tax issues.
• BDO appoints Jennifer Wall as partner within the London tax group, specialising in private equity funds. She joins the firm from KPMG.
• DLA Piper appoints transfer pricing specialist César Salagaray, formerly of KPMG, as a partner in its Madrid office.
• Moore Kingston Smith acquires the audit and accounting business of Frank Hirth. The remaining Frank Hirth tax practice continues to specialise in offering tax advice on the interaction between the US and UK tax jurisdictions.
• HMRC appoints Myrtle Lloyd as director general for its customer service group. Myrtle is currently chief operating officer at Her Majesty’s Passport Office, as well as registrar general for England and Wales. She is also the head of profession at the Home Office for operational delivery.

15 January 2021

• Hogan Lovells promotes Emily McCarthy to counsel in the firm’s tax, pensions & benefits team. She is based in London.
• Alvarez & Marsal Taxand appoints Kersten Muller as a managing director. Muller, formerly of Grant Thornton, will lead the firm’s real estate team in the UK. He has more than 20 years’ experience, specialising in tax-efficient structuring for UK, European and global real estate transactions, as well as real estate funds and investment vehicles. 

11 January 2021

• Barrister Dilpreet K. Dhanoa joins Field Court Tax Chambers.
• Norton Rose Fulbright promotes Julia Lloyd to tax partner. Lloyd advises on a range of clients on the UK tax aspects of collective investment schemes and investment in, or development of, UK real estate. She is based in the firm’s London office.
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges appoints Daniella Abel, Ellie Marques and Stuart Pibworth to counsel in the London tax team.
• Regional accountancy firm Moore Thompson promotes Emma Taylor-Bunting to associate in the firm’s tax team.
• KPMG appoints corporate tax specialist Vishal Chopra as partner and its new head of tax in Scotland. Chopra, formerly of Grant Thornton, will lead a team of 90 tax professionals operating across the firm’s offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
• BDO promotes the following to partner in the firm’s tax team: Vinesh Bharadwa, Lee Coccaro, Martin Haines, Carole Le Page, Ed Peters, Lucy Sauvage and Thomas To.

4 January 2021

• ADE Tax appoints Martin Walker as principal in its tax practice. Walker, formerly head of operational and securities tax at Deloitte, provides decision and policy support for financial services and blue-chip clients on a wide range of tax issues, combining technical expertise with practical commercial experience.
• Specialist tax advisory firm Greenwoods appoints stamp duty expert Zoe Chung as partner in the firm’s Melbourne office. Chung has over 20 years’ tax experience, mainly focused on providing stamp duty and land tax advice to clients across a wide range of  industries, including funds management, property and infrastructure.
• Simmons & Simmons appoints Martin Phelan in the firm’s Dublin office as head of tax. Phelan joins the firm from William Fry, where he has been head of tax for twenty years. He is also secretary-general of CFE Tax Advisers Europe, the representative body of tax institutes and chambers in Europe and he has previously served as president of the Irish Tax Institute.
• DLA Piper appoints Luis Muñoz as partner in its tax practice, based in Luxembourg. Muñoz, formerly of Allen & Overy, focuses on international and corporate tax law. 

1 December 2020

• Charles Russell Speechlys appoints Simon Weil, formerly of BDB Pitmans, as a partner. Weil is an experienced private client lawyer who specialises in tax planning, trusts, philanthropy and charities.
  

• 30 November 2020
  

• Saffery Champness re-elects partner James Sykes as chairman. Sykes will continue to advise his client base of wealthy individuals, families, landed estates and high growth businesses.
• VAT expert Kevin Hall, formerly of Markel Tax, join law firm Wright Hassall as VAT partner. 
• Employment tax expert Thomas Dalby and VAT expert Punnit Vyas, both formerly of Markel Tax, join Haines Watts London as head of employer solutions and senior manager, respectively.

23 November 2020

• HMRC appoints Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia as the new chair of the HMRC board. Gadhia is a member of the UK government’s industrial strategy council and former CEO of Virgin Money. She replaces Mervyn Walker who is stepping down at the end of December after six years on the board.
• R&D and IP specialist GovGrant appoints Stephanie Taylor as senior tax manager. Taylor has 20 years’ experience providing tax and accounting advice to a broad range of clients. She joins the firm from Whitbread.
• Allen & Overy appoints Meenah Shah as senior manager, international tax. Shah was previously group head of tax at the Collinson Group.

20 November 2020

• Independent tax consultant Peter Rayney becomes is the 56th president of the CIOT. Susan Ball, partner at BDO, is the incoming CIOT deputy president, and Gary Ashford, vice president of CFE (Tax Advisers Europe), is the incoming CIOT vice president. Usually the presidential handover takes place in May, and presidents serve a 12 month term. However this year, due to the disruption caused by covid-19, it was agreed that outgoing president Glyn Fullelove would extend his term of office to serve 18 months, with Rayney taking over in November 2020 and also serving 18 months, handing over to his successor in May 2022. 
• Gibson Dunn promotes Kathryn Kelly to tax partner in the firm’s New York office, effective January 1 2021. Kelly’s practice focuses on a broad range of U.S. and international tax matters, including public and private mergers and acquisitions, cross-border transactions, restructuring, and financing transactions.
• Mayer Brown promotes Rémy Bonnaud and Michael N. Loquercio to tax transactions & consulting counsel. Bonnaud is based in the firm’s Paris office; Loquercio is based in Chicago.

13 November 2020

• Joseph Hage Aaronson appoints private client tax specialist Jill Kaur as a senior associate in the firm’s London office. Kaur, formerly of EY, has 25 years’ experience advising ultra and high net worth individuals on tax matters and structuring their wealth in the UK and overseas. She advises across all areas of income and capital taxes and has a particular focus on advising individuals in the private equity and hedge fund space.

6 November 2020

• Kemp Little, a technology and digital media law firm, becomes part of Deloitte Legal, adding 29 partners and up to 57 lawyers to the firm’s legal offering upon completion of the transaction. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in London, Kemp Little offers legal services in commercial technology, corporate, employment, data protection, disputes, IP and financial regulation across a range of sectors including financial services, telecoms, and media and digital solutions.
• Denis Edwards joins Temple Tax Chambers. Edwards’ expertise is in VAT, customs duties, EU Law, judicial review, enquiries and investigations and direct taxes. He advises and represents both taxpayers and public authorities in a wide range of tax cases.
• Blick Rothenberg appoints Jo How to lead the firm’s employer services team. She advises on all aspects of UK employment taxes and cross-border issues.
• Cooper Parry promotes Steve Round to transaction tax director. Round advises shareholders and private businesses on all equity-related matters.
• FTI Consulting appoints Paul Pritchard as managing director, European tax advisory. Pritchard, formerly of EY, specialises in tax related corporate treasury and debt restructuring matters.

29 October 2020

• Azets, previously known as Wilkins Kennedy in the south and south east of England, opens a new office in Bournemouth. Heather Williams, who joined the firm in May as tax partner, will head up the new office.
• Latham and Watkins promotes James Leslie to counsel in the firm’s London tax department, effective January 1 2021. Leslie focuses on the direct and indirect tax aspects of national and international transactions. He advises clients on a range of matters, including banking, structured finance, capital markets issues, project finance, investment funds, M&A, and corporate reorganisations.  

26 October 2020

• The CIOT honours tax adviser and commentator Heather Self and former cabinet minister David Gauke for their outstanding contributions to the field of taxation. Self, a corporate tax partner at Blick Rothenberg, receives the Council Award, the highest-ranking award the Institute can give, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the life of the Institute and the profession as a whole. Gauke is awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute, a mark of excellence bestowed on the grounds of particular distinction in the field of taxation. Gauke is head of public policy at Macfarlanes.
• Simpson Thacher appoints Mark Kingstone as senior counsel in the firm’s tax practice. Kingstone, formerly head of the tax group at Linklaters, has more than 32 years of experience advising a wide range of UK and international corporations, financial institutions, investment funds and asset managers on a broad array of mergers and acquisitions and other transactions, as well as in investment fund planning, tax planning and contentious matters. He is based in the firm’s London office.
• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan appoints tax litigator Stéphane Chaouat as partner and head of its Paris tax disputes practice. Chaouat, formerly of Weil Gotshal, is an experienced trial litigator known for resolving complex tax contingencies, disputes and negotiations. His client base includes financial institutions, private equity funds, public and private companies and individuals. He will take up his new role in January 2021.
• Irish law firm Mason Hayes & Curran appoints Niamh Caffrey as a partner in the firm’s tax team. Caffrey is an experienced tax lawyer who advises international and domestic clients on tax planning and structuring across sectors such as healthcare & life sciences, energy, technology, real estate and international trade. She will be based in the firm’s Dublin office.
• Magma chartered accountants promotes Michelle Andrews to tax partner. Andrews joined Magma in 2014 from EY.
  

9 October 2020

• EY appoints Anna Anthony as its new UK financial services leader, effective 1 January 2021. Anthony, who joined the firm in 2004, becoming partner in 2008, is currently EY’s EMEIA financial services tax and legal leader. In her new role she will lead over 200 partners with responsibility for some of the firm’s largest clients globally. 

5 October 2020

• Pinsent Masons appoints Hatice Ismail as a director in the firm’s tax team. Ismail, formerly of Simmons & Simmons, advises on all aspects of corporate tax, including corporate M&A, restructuring, structured finance, cross-border and real estate transactions, predominantly for clients in the asset management & investment funds and financial institutions sectors. She also advises on stamp taxes, VAT and international automatic exchange of information regimes (including FATCA, the common reporting standard, and EU mandatory disclosure regime or DAC 6). 

2 October 2020

• Specialist tax firm Andersen in the UK appoints James Paull as director and head of the incentives group. Paull, who has over 20 years’ experience in employee incentives advice, joins the firm from Higham Park Inventives Advisers. In his new role he will provide specialist advice in respect of the design, implementation and operation of employee incentive arrangements to companies, partnerships and individuals, with a particular focus on tax, legal and technical aspects.
• Kirkland & Ellis promotes Cian O'Connor and Sam Trowbridge to tax partner. Both are based in the firm’s London office.
• Morgan Lewis promotes Neil McKnight to tax partner. Mcknight advises on a full range of corporate, finance, and real estate tax matters and has a particular interest in indirect tax and VAT matters relating to cross-border transactions (particularly in the TMT sector), e-commerce, and financial services. He is based in the firm’s London office.
• Withers appoints barrister and former attorney general, the right honourable Geoffrey Cox QC MP, as its consultant global counsel. In his new role Cox will work closely with the firm on advice to both its private and overseas government clients on international commercial litigation, fraud disputes, international arbitrations (both investment treaty and commercial) and public international law matters. In addition to acting as a consultant for Withers, he remains MP for Torridge and West Devon and a privy counsellor and will continue to practice as a barrister at his chambers.
• Travers Smith appoints Baroness (Nicky) Morgan as a consultant in the firm’s technology sector group. Morgan was elected Conservative MP for Loughborough in 2010 and has served in a range of positions during her political career, serving as secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport and education secretary and minister for Women and Equalities from July 2014 to July 2016.  She was also the first, and to date only, female chair of the treasury select committee. Morgan was a solicitor in the firm from 2002 to 2010.
• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer elects Georgia Dawson as senior partner. Dawson, who currently serves as the firm's Asia managing partner and the leader of the Asia dispute resolution practice, will lead a new senior leadership team from January 2021.
• Italian law firm Gatti Pavesi Bianchi and the tax firm Ludovici Piccone & Partners are merging to create Gatti Pavesi Bianchi Ludovici, effective 1 January 2021. The new firm will operate in Milan and Rome, with additional offices in London, Vienna and Luxembourg.
• KPMG announces new appointments to its executive board and the creation of a new UK Advisory Council comprising senior external advisors recruited from a range of fields and backgrounds, together with KPMG UK’s vice chairs and representatives of the firm’s senior leadership.
• Dentons appoints Stefan Korten as of counsel in the firm’s tax practice. Korten, formerly group head of tax at Commerzbank, will be based in Denton’s Frankfurt office.

23 September 2020

• Deloitte announces changes to its audit governance structure with the establishment of an independent Audit Governance Board (AGB). Effective from 1 January 2021, the AGB will have responsibility for providing independent oversight of the UK audit practice. The creation of the AGB is the initial phase of Deloitte’s implementation of the principles for operational separation of audit practices set out by the FRC in July 2020.
• In addition, Deloitte promotes Stephen Griggs, formerly managing partner for audit & assurance and public policy, as managing partner for Deloitte UK.
• Geraldine Martin, formerly of Duncan Rann Associates, joins Andrew Jackson Solicitors as a partner in its tax and trusts team.
• BDO appoints Catherine Grum, formerly of KPMG, as partner and head of family office services in London.
• Commercial property tax expert Michael Warman is promoted to director at LB Group Ltd.
• Tilney and Smith & Williamson have completed their merger. The group is renamed Tilney Smith & Williamson. 

4 September 2020

• Convex Insurance appoints former KPMG tax partner Robert Clayton as its head of tax.
• Deloitte appoints Jack Diggle as head of the firm’s legal management consulting arm. Diggle, formerly of alternative legal services provider Elevate, will be responsible for expanding the firm’s legal offerings to in-house teams, contracting functions, and law firms.

1 September 2020

• HMRC appoints Daljit Rehal as its chief digital and information officer, effective from 14 September. Rehal is a senior technology and data executive with broad experience in the sector, including modernising digital capabilities, adopting big data, AI/ML (artificial intelligence/machine learning) technologies and 'agile' methods and leading change. He replaces interim CDIO director general Mark Denney. Rehal joins HMRC after nearly nine years at Centrica as global digital and data services Director. He previously held senior positions at Talk Talk and Virgin Media
• Eversheds Sutherland appoints Breen M. Schiller and Nikki E. Dobay to the firm’s tax practice group as state and local tax partners. Schiller will be based in the firm’s Chicago office and Dobay in the firm’s Sacramento office.
  

24 August 2020

• Dentons appoints tax partner Jean-Luc Fisch as head of the tax practice in Luxembourg. Fisch, formerly of  Luxembourg-based law firm Elvinger Hoss Prussen, brings more than 20 years’ experience in tax matters related to investment funds, M&A, private equity, real estate and capital markets.
• EY appoints Louise Morley as a tax adviser in its people advisory services team. Morley, formerly of RSM, brings many years’ experience working with private clients on global mobility, employment tax and share scheme activity. In her new role she will lead the growth of the integrated mobility team in the firm’s Reading office, supporting all aspects of employment tax and social security compliance and advisory work, plus the design and implementation of equity reward arrangements.
• Milsted Langdon appoints Robert Brown as a partner in the firm’s Bristol office. Brown, a tax specialist with over 30 years’ experience, joins the firm from a role in industry, where he was group CFO for the last five years. 

4 August 2020

• HMRC appoints Justin Holliday as its tax assurance commissioner. The tax assurance commissioner oversees the governance and assurance of HMRC’s resolution of tax disputes, but does not directly engage with taxpayers to discuss their specific tax liabilities, nor is he responsible for the HMRC operational teams that manage taxpayers’ compliance. Holliday replaces Melissa Tatton following her appointment as interim group director, corporate, at the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, a position she takes up in September. Holliday retains his responsibilities as HMRC's chief finance officer.
• EY appoints Graham Richter as partner to its tax technology & transformation team, based in London. Richter joins from Accenture, where he led its Blockchain practice in the UK. Much of his experience has been within the corporate functions in the oil and gas sector. He is said to have a passion for emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality and the internet of things. 

3 August 2020

• The OECD Forum on Tax Administration (FTA) appoints commissioner Bob Hamilton of the Canada Revenue Agency as its new chair. He succeeds Hans Christian Holte, head of the Norwegian tax administration in the role. The FTA has 53 members comprising commissioners and tax administration officials from both OECD and non-OECD countries, including all members of the G20.
• KPMG appoints Victoria Heard as its head of tax and legal practices, effective 1 October. Heard joined the firm as a graduate, becoming partner in 2014 and has been head of the firm’s financial services tax and legal practice since 2017. In her new role, she will sit on the UK firm’s executive leadership team and will be responsible for overseeing the running of KPMG’s tax and legal practices.
• EY appoints Moray Barber as a tax partner and Duncan Reoch as associate partner to the firm’s tax team in Scotland. Barber has more than 20 years of experience supporting clients with complex tax issues across a diverse range of sectors, predominantly oil and gas and will be based in Aberdeen. Reoch, who joined the firm in March, leads the Scotland private client team across the firm’s four offices in Scotland; Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness.

27 July 2020

• KPMG appoints David Linke as its next global head of tax & legal services, effective 1 October 2020. Linke is currently the Asia Pacific regional leader for tax, as well as the head of tax, deals and legal for KPMG Australia. In his new role, he will serve on the KPMG global management team. He succeeds Jane McCormick who has held the role since 2016.
• Weil, Gotshal & Manges appoints Daniel Nicholas as a partner in the firm’s global tax practice. Nicholas, formerly of Eversheds Sutherland, will be based in the Washington DC office.
• RSM appoints Paul Minness as a corporate tax partner in the firm’s corporate tax team in the Midlands and North West. Minness, formerly of EY, specialises in transfer pricing and operating model effectiveness.
• Streets Chartered Accountants opens a new Northamptonshire office led by tax partners Luke Prout and Jennie Brown. The new office means the firm has a total of 16 offices including its specialist offices in London and Brighton, along with general practice offices throughout the East of England, East Midlands and Yorkshire.
• William Fry promotes Sonya Manzor as head of tax. Manzor joined the firm in 2005 and advises multinationals on Irish tax matters, including corporate tax, VAT and stamp duty.

17 July 2020

• KPMG appoints Andrea Tolley as a transfer pricing partner. Tolley, formerly of GSK, has spent the last 15 years working in roles across a number of different jurisdictions and industries.
• Goringe Accountants appoints Lydia Nzene joins as a tax accountant. In her new role, Nzene, formerly of Kynetec, will support Goringe’s personal tax clients.  Goringe also announced the opening of a new office in Bristol.
• Blick Rothenberg appoints Nimesh Shah as CEO, effective 1 August. He takes over from the current CEO, Nilesh Shah (no relation), who is leaving the company to take up an advisory role with Blick Rothenberg’s parent company Cogital Group.
• Hansuke Consulting appoints Gavin Helmer, the former managing director of Credit Suisse, as a senior principal within the firm. Helmer has more than 25 years’ experience in the financial services industry and has held a variety of senior management roles in tax departments of leading banks including Standard Bank, UBS, Credit Suisse and Barclays.  

14 July 2020

• Specialist tax and legal firm Andersen Tax UK and other firms in Europe operating under the brands Andersen Tax, Andersen Legal and Andersen Tax & Legal will now operate under the single brand Andersen. The change follows US member firm’s transition to Andersen last year. Similar brand changes in other regions around the world will follow.
• EY appoints Joel Lachlan Cooper as a partner specialising in transfer pricing controversy based in London. He joins the firm from DLA Piper.
• Global tax software provider Sovos acquires Accordance, a UK based VAT managed services company.
• Vodafone launches a legal services offering in the UK market through a partnership with legal tech start-up Sparqa Legal, a web-based platform that gives guidance on legal matters and sells contract templates.
• Deloitte launches a new legal business services practice in the US, continuing the firm’s global expansion as a provider of legal business services.
  

6 July 2020

• Angela MacDonald is appointed the deputy chief executive and second permanent secretary at HMRC. MacDonald is currently director general for customer services group at HMRC, a role she has held since 2017. She will take up her new role on 1 August 2020, and a competition will soon commence to appoint a successor to lead HMRC's customer services group.
• Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer opens a new office in Silicon Valley with seven founding partners.
• PwC promotes Tom Birch and Ben Roseff to partner in the firm’s Manchester office. Birch runs PwC's operational indirect taxes and making tax digital initiatives. Roseff will lead the firm’s tax dispute centre of excellence in the North. 

1 July 2020

• PKF Francis Clark promotes corporate tax specialist Adam Kefford to partner. Kefford, who is based in Exeter, specialises in international business tax and advises clients on a range of corporate and business tax matters, including corporate reorganisations. The firm also appoints Becky Hayes (VAT), Scott Campbell (tax advisory service) and Nicky Cornish (family and owner managed businesses) to director.
• Baker McKenzie promotes tax specialists Natalie Dunne and Matthew Legg to partner, effective 1 July 2020. Both are based in London. Globally, tax saw the largest intake of new partners.
• DWF is to close its offices in Singapore and Brussels and reduce headcount in its Dubai and Cologne operations. Around 60 people are expected to leave the firm.

26 June 2020

• MHA MacIntyre Hudson promotes VAT specialist Sue Rathmell to partner, with effect from 1 July. Rathmell, who  joined MHA in 2017 and heads the indirect tax services team in the Kent region, has more than 25 years’ experience of VAT, excise and customs duties.
• PwC appoints Carol Stubbings as global tax and legal services leader, with effect from 1 July. Stubbings joined PwC UK in November 2003 and has been a partner for the last 15 years. She has been a member of PwC’s global tax and legal leadership group for the past four years. 
• Adrian Shipwright has resigned from Exchequer Chambers and will no longer be accepting instructions through them. He joined the newly launched set in May of this year.
• Debevoise & Plimpton promotes Daniel Priest to partner in the firm’s tax department, effective 1 July. He is based in the New York office.

17 June 2020

• Markel Tax appoints VAT specialist Stuart Brodie as a partner. Brodie, formerly of Grant Thornton, has over 20 years' professional experience. He has represented a number of clients in the tax tribunal and through ADR on VAT liability questions, deductibility of input tax, and the application of the change of use provisions. He also specialises in the financial services and care sectors as well as advising widely in the food and drink sector.
• International private client advisers Mark Davies & Associates, appoints Roger Holman as tax partner. Holman’s practice focuses on capital taxes planning for UK and non-UK domiciled individuals, together with advising on all other taxes that affect the individual, including income tax, SDLT and CGT. He joins the firm form DWF.
• Wilson Wright appoints Karen Spencer-Smith as private client tax partner. She brings a broad knowledge base of tax and commercial experience gained over the course of a 30-year career, together with particular expertise in providing strategic and practical guidance to non-domiciled individuals. Spencer-Smith founded a boutique UK tax practice, Saffron Tax Partners, ten years ago and will continue to advise her clients.

10 June 2020

• RPC promotes Ben Roberts to non-contentious tax partner. Roberts advises clients on all aspects of corporate tax matters, including mergers and acquisitions and corporate reorganisations and has particular experience in the real estate, banking, insurance and investment funds sectors. He is based in the firm’s London office.
• KPMG Law Advokatfirma appoints Line Kjær as tax partner in the firm’s Copenhagen office. Kjaer was formerly co-head of the tax practice at DLA Piper Denmark.

5 June 2020

• Professor Judith Freedman CBE is appointed to the board of the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), succeeding Paul Johnson CBE. Freedman is Pinsent Masons professor of taxation law and policy at Oxford University and was a joint founder of the Oxford University’s Centre for Business Taxation.
• Dentons appoints Dr. Pia Dorfmueller to its tax practice in Germany. Dorfmueller has over 20 years of experience in advising on corporate tax matters. She is based in the firm’s Frankfurt office.
• CMS appoints REIT specialist Phil Nicklin as a tax partner in the corporate practice based in London. Nicklin, formerly of Deloitte, has more than 20 years’ experience advising on large scale, complex transactions for major real estate companies and funds. In his new role, Nicklin will lead the REITs and structured transactions team, a specialist tax advisory service that focuses on tax and legal complexities of REIT formation and structured transactions.
• Rawlinson & Hunter promotes private client tax specialists David Kilshaw and Alan Ive to partner.

29 May 2020

• Wilkins Kennedy appoints Heather Williams as a tax partner. Williams, formerly of Mazars, has more than 30 years' experience advising entrepreneurial businesses. She specialises in R&D tax credits and employee incentivisation schemes, including share schemes. She will join the tax team servicing the Dorset, Wiltshire and Hampshire regions.
• Tilney and Smith & Williamson agree a revised transaction structure for their proposed merger. The merged group will be known as Tilney Smith & Williamson. It is expected that completion will take place in the second half of 2020. The combined business will be responsible for approximately £44bn in assets under management and, on a pro forma basis, will generate circa £530m of revenue.

27 May 2020

• EY appoints Jeff Soar as UK&I managing partner for tax, effective 1 July. Soar originally joined EY in 1998 and, after four years at a law firm, re-joined EY in 2005. He became a partner in 2009 and has subsequently held a number of senior positions at EY,  working across the EY tax practice. 

18 May 2020

• RPC promotes Michelle Sloane to partner in its tax disputes team. Sloane’s practice focuses on tax fraud and customs and excise duty disputes. Additionally, the firm appoints Harry Smith, formerly of KPMG, to the tax disputes team as a senior associate.
• Saffery Champness promotes Elizabeth Hartless, Richard Jameson and Sinead McHugh to partner. Hartless specialises in advising large and complex family groups, particularly those involving trusts. Jameson advises private clients and private equity executives on their tax affairs including residence, domicile and the remittance basis of taxation, UK resident and non-resident trust matters, estate planning and inheritance tax, private equity taxation and property tax issues. McHugh provides specialist advice on claiming the creative sector tax reliefs. She also has experience in the UK cultural test and qualifying co-productions, as well as providing auditing and accounting services.
• Philip Geddes, formerly of HSBC, joins LV as senior tax manager (head of tax) 
• ATC appoints Max Porter as a private client director. Porter, formerly of The Fry Group, has almost ten years’ experience in personal tax matters.
• Churchill Tax Advisers appoint Dave Jennings as tax investigations director. Jennings, formerly of Qubic Group, has held previous positions at HMRC and Top10 accountancy firms.
• Ashurst appoints partner Michele Milanese to lead the firm’s tax offering in Milan. Milanese, formerly of Allen & Overy, has significant experience in financial taxation, corporate tax, VAT and tax disputes resolution and an in-depth knowledge of the tax aspects of banking (including securitisation), private equity, project finance, asset finance, energy and structured finance.
• RSM appoints Simon Browning and Michael McLaughlin as partners based in the firm’s Nottingham office. Browning, formerly of UHY Hacker Young, brings over 20 years of experience working primarily with owner managed and private equity (PE) based businesses across the East Midlands region. McLaughlin, formerly of PwC, brings a strong working knowledge of the retail and consumer, manufacturing, and financial services sectors within the East Midlands region.

11 May 2020

• Andrew Thornhill QC heads Exchequer Chambers, a new set of tax chambers. Other members are Richard Clayton QC, Julian Hickey, Suleman Ahmed, Adrian Shipwright and David Welsh.
• Sara Luder has retired from Slaughter and May. Luder joined the firm as an associate, becoming a partner in 1998 before going on to head up the tax practice. She advised corporates and other businesses on the full range of UK tax issues. 

8 May 2020

• Morrison & Foerster appoints Sophie Allen as a partner in the firm’s tax department. Allen, formerly of EY, has extensive experience advising on the UK and international tax aspects of private equity and M&A transactions. She will be based in the firm’s London office.
• Irwin Mitchell promotes Emma McCann and Andrea Jones to partner in its tax, trusts and estates team. Jones will lead the new tax, trusts and estates team for the Manchester and North West market.
• Burges Salmon promotes Catherine de Maid and Emma Heelis-Adams to partner in the firm’s international private client team. De Maid specialises in international tax, trusts and estate planning advice for a wide range of clients, from high net worth individuals to trust companies and other institutions. Heelis-Adams specialises in providing tax advice to high net worth and ultra-high net worth international clients, advising individuals who are UK resident but not UK domiciled and non-UK residents. She also advises private banks.
• Clifford Chance promotes 26 lawyers to the partnership, including one new tax partner in Europe, Dr Dominik Engl, ​who is based in the firm’s Frankfurt office.

1 May 2020

• Macfarlanes appoints David Gauke as its head of public policy. Gauke was a solicitor in the firm from 1999 to 2005. He served as a Conservative and (latterly) an independent MP from May 2005 to November 2019. During his political career he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor.
• Charles Russell Speechlys promotes Helen Coward to partner, effective 1 May 2020. Coward has a broad practice with particular experience of the taxation of owner-managed businesses and all aspects of real estate taxation. The firm also promotes Hugh Gunson to legal director. Gunson specialises in disputes and investigations across all areas of tax, for clients including individuals, trustees and corporates.
• Independent tax consultancy Forbes Dawson promotes Michelle Hogan, Rebecca Bedford and Tom Minnikin to partner, effective 1 May 2020.
• DLA Piper promotes 67 lawyers to its partnership across many of the firm's practice areas in 35 different offices throughout 13 countries, including four in tax. They are: Naftali Dembitzer, Witold Jurewicz, Chris Feldman (US) and Jonas Aartun (Norway). 

28 April 2020

• The CIOT appoints Clive Gawthorpe, tax partner in the Manchester office of UHY Hacker Young, to chair its European branch.
• Gowling WLG promotes Chris Nyland to tax partner. Nyland is based in the firm’s Birmingham office and specialises in real estate tax.
• New tax consultancy ATC Tax is founded to support UK expats around the globe. The firm is led by managing director, Finn Houlihan (formerly of The Fry Group and Royal Bank of Scotland), and co-founded by James Hunt and Scott Barlow (both formerly of The Fry Group and EY). In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the firm is offering NHS staff or consultants a free tax ‘health check’ and support on their next tax return for £1.

20 April 2020

• Freshfields promotes Philipp Redeker to tax partner. Redeker is based in the firm’s Düsseldorf office.
• Herbert Smith Freehills promotes Casey Dalton and Michael Hunt to tax partner, effective from 1 May. They are both based in the firm’s London office.

6 April 2020

• The new leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, appoints Anneliese Dodds MP as shadow chancellor. Dodds, MP for Oxford East since 2017, was previously shadow financial secretary to the Treasury. She replaces John McDonnell who resigned from the shadow cabinet.
• Dentons appoints international tax adviser Mark Galea Salomone. Salomone, formerly of KPMG, joins Dentons on 20 April. 
• CBW promotes Michaela Lamb to partner. Lamb advises on all private client tax issues for UK and offshore individuals, as well as for trusts and estates.
• Andersen Tax UK appoints Kevin Hindley as head of corporation tax and real estate tax in the UK. Hindley, formerly head of boutique tax consultancy K Hindley Ltd, has more than 20 years’ experience advising a variety of clients across several sectors, but with a particular focus on real estate. Also appointed from K Hindley Ltd is Warren Howells as partner in the corporate tax group. Howells primarily works with UK groups and UK subsidiaries of international groups.
• EY acquires Breakthrough Funding Ltd, a UK-based R&D independent tax consultancy which specialises in supporting companies accessing R&D tax relief through the SME scheme. The Breakthrough Funding Ltd team will become an extension of EY’s innovation incentive R&D tax team under the new name EY-Breakthrough Incentives, and its 20 employees will continue to operate from its head office in Ashford, Kent.

30 March 2020

• RSM UK promotes three new partners in its national tax practice: VAT specialist Scott Harwood (London); corporate tax specialist Michael Plant (Nottingham); and R&D tax specialist Sheetal Sanghvi (Leicester).
• Adler Shine appoints Nik Shah as partner to its tax team, formerly of BDO, Shah has a particular focus on the corporate advisory and transactions markets.

23 March 2020

• John Whiting OBE is appointed as the new chair of the GAAR advisory panel . He succeeds Patrick Mears OBE whose term as chair ends next month. Whiting is currently chair designate of the GAAR advisory panel and is also a Board member of Revenue Scotland. He is a former non-executive director of HMRC and tax director of the Office of Tax Simplification. 
• Debevoise & Plimpton appoints Jenny Wheater as an international counsel and member of the tax and private equity groups in the firm’s London office. Wheater, formerly of Linklaters, advises clients on the tax aspects of establishing and operating various types of investment funds, including private equity, debt and real estate funds, and on a variety of private equity transactions such as secondaries.
• Grant Thornton promotes Emma Davies to partner. Davies leads the special projects team at Grant Thornton in Yorkshire, delivering bespoke accounting projects to growing businesses.

17 March 2020

• Grant Thornton appoints Vic Angley as tax partner at the firm’s Limerick office. He has extensive experience spanning several areas, including; cross border tax planning, corporate acquisitions, reconstructions and reorganisations and foreign direct investment into Ireland. Angley joins the Limerick tax practice having worked in both Big Four and large national tax practices over the past twenty years.
• Smith & Williamson appoints David Yewdall and John Manis to its employment tax and incentives team. Yewdall, formerly of PwC, joins the firm as a partner in the Birmingham office. He specialises in handling international employment tax matters in various jurisdictions, as well as UK domestic employer compliance issues. He has extensive experience in managing a range of global mobility programmes, reducing business costs and streamlining administration to achieve the best all round solution for his clients. Manis, formerly of BDO, joins the firm’s London office as a director.
• Morrison & Foerster appoints Sophie Allen as a tax partner to its London office. Allen, who advises on the tax aspects of private equity and M&A transactions, will join the firm in May from EY.  

9 March 2020

• Macfarlanes promotes Alicia Thomas to partner. Thomas practises in the investment management part of the firm’s tax practice and has particular experience advising in the context of establishing private equity and other investment funds and structuring their remuneration arrangements. Promoted to senior counsel is Sarah Shucksmith who focuses on the tax aspects of establishing private equity and property investment funds and on structuring the transactions which follow. Both appointments are effective 1 May 2020.
• Karen Mulcahy joins Selfridges Group as senior manager, indirect tax. She joins the company from Amazon.

3 March 2020

• White & Case appoints Will Smith as a partner in London. Smith, formerly of Sidley Austin, is a transactional and advisory tax lawyer who focuses on the direct and indirect aspects of a range of international and UK tax matters. He advises clients on the tax aspects of cross-border investments, the setting-up of acquisition or financing structures, real estate transactions, complex M&A transactions and group reorganizations, and incentive arrangements. In addition, he has significant expertise advising investment funds.
• Greenberg Traurig appoints corporate tax lawyer Clive Jones as a shareholder in the firm’s tax and real estate funds practices in its London office. Jones, formerly head of the UK tax practice at DLA Piper, focuses on tax and structuring advice in relation to UK and international transactions, funds, and investment structures, primarily in the real estate and financial services sectors.

28 February 2020

• Simpson Thacher & Bartlett appoints Yash Rupal as a partner in its London office where he will be a part of its global tax practice. Rupal, formerly head of the London tax group at Linklaters, represents a broad range of U.K. and international corporate clients, financial institutions, investment funds, hedge funds, asset managers and their respective executives on complicated, often cross-border, mergers and acquisitions, investment fund planning and tax planning matters. He also advises extensively on tax disputes, tax litigation and HMRC enquiries.
• UHY Hacker Young appoints Tracey Moore as its new head of charities and not for profit. Moore joined UHY Hacker Young in 2019 and has more than 20 years of experience working in the not for profit sector.
• Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) opens its fifth UK office in Glasgow, continuing its regional expansion. The new office will be led by Donald Campbell, formerly of Deloitte. Campbell has more than 30 years of tax experience, advising both individuals and corporates on tax related to M&A, real estate, funds and succession planning. He will be joined by Jordan Brown, formerly of EY, who has over 10 years of experience advising private clients and asset managers on tax issues and Charlotte Walker who has over three years’ experience advising asset management clients on tax matters. In addition to the new office in Glasgow, the firm has offices in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

17 February 2020

• The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP is appointed chancellor of the exchequer following the resignation of Sajid Javid. He was previously chief secretary to the treasury and parliamentary under secretary of state at the ministry of housing, communities and local government. The Rt Hon Stephen Barclay MP, former Brexit secretary, replaces Sunak as chief secretary to the treasury. The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP is appointed exchequer secretary to the treasury. The Rt Hon Jesse Norman MP remains as financial secretary to the treasury.
• RPC appoints barrister Alice Kemp as an associate in its tax fraud team. Kemp joins from the Serious Fraud Office.
• The Taxation Disciplinary Board (TDB), the independent body that is responsible for running the complaints and disciplinary scheme for the CIOT and the ATT, appoints Susan Humble as its new chair. Humble was previously chief executive officer and the clerk of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal.
• Travers Smith appoints partner Emily Clark as head of the firm's tax practice. Clark advises on all aspects of fund formation across all the alternative asset classes including private equity and venture, credit, infrastructure and real estate. She also advises asset managers, ranging from global multi-strategy houses through to new start-up teams, on the tax issues which impact their businesses. In her new role Clark will lead a team of 40 qualified tax lawyers, including nine partners. She joined Travers Smith in 1998 and became a partner in 2011.
• Grant Thornton Ireland promotes Brian Murphy to partner and head of financial services tax. Murphy specialises in the provision of tax advisory and compliance services to a diverse range of financial services clients across the asset management, banking, insurance, securitisation, leasing and regulated fintech sectors.

12 February 2020

• Kreston Reeves appoints Andy Wallis as a partner in the firm’s corporate and international tax team, with effect from 18 March 2020. Wallis has experience and expertise in advising large businesses on complex international tax matters, as well as UK corporate tax, financing and treasury tax, tax risk management and structuring M&A transactions. He was previously head of corporate tax strategy and planning at Pentland Group.
• BDO appoints Julia McCullagh as partner in the international corporate tax team. McCullagh, formerly of PwC, has a particular focus on the pharmaceutical sector and consumer markets. In her new role will advise clients on the tax aspects of their UK and overseas operations, including cross-border operating models and transfer pricing. She will be based in the firm’s Baker Street office in London.

5 February 2020

• CMS appoints two tax partners, Frédéric Feyten and Jean-Dominique Morelli, to its Luxembourg office. Feyten, formerly of Dentons, also assumes the role of managing partner of the CMS Luxembourg office.
  
• Goodwin Procter appoints Bastien Voisin as principal to lead the tax practice in the firm’s Luxembourg office. Voisin, formerly head of CMS tax practice in Luxembourg, advises institutional investors, asset managers, multinational technology and life sciences companies and high-net-worth individuals on all aspects of international taxation and cross-border structuring.
• Paragon appoints Anjali Anthony as its head of tax insurance. Anthony, formerly of Skadden, is an Australian qualified lawyer with knowledge of the tax risks arising from private equity and real estate transactions in multiple jurisdictions across UK, Europe and Asia-pacific.

3 February 2020

• Mazars appoints Chloe Ellis as a partner based in the firm’s Leeds office, where she will be responsible for leading the 40-strong tax team. Ellis, formerly of RSM, has over 15 years’ experience providing guidance to owner-managed business and to large corporate groups with complex international tax issues.
• Specialist tax boutique Streets Myton Mulholland appoints Tajinder Bhalla as private client tax partner. Bhalla joins Streets as a qualified barrister, having previously worked in big four a firms and as a tax director at GlaxoSmithKline. In his new role, he will lead on the provision of private client tax work in London.
• Streets chartered accountants appoints Jennie Brown as a tax partner. Brown has more than 15 years’ experience gained from working in large practice and regional firms and specialises in inheritance tax and wealth protection planning, IR35 and workforce assessments, property planning; considering all appropriate structures and residence and domicile.
• RSM appoints Graham Steele as partner in its north west tax practice. Steele, formerly of KPMG, specialises in innovation tax reliefs, including R&D tax reliefs, patent box and creative sector tax reliefs.
• BHP appoints Suzy Harris-Milnes as tax partner, primarily based in the firm’s Sheffield and Leeds offices. Harris-Milnes, formerly of Grant Thornton, has over twenty years’ experience in providing tax planning advice to private clients, OMBs and their owners.
• Mark Dyson, former head of tax at Essentra plc, joins Lloyd’s as head of tax.
• Claritas Tax promotes Ses Memhi to associate director. Memhi has more than 15 years’ experience in tax, providing advice on all aspects of corporate and business taxes for both listed and multinational groups and OMB.
• Arabella Murphy launches new consultancy Propitious (London) Ltd, which advises wealthy families and individuals from around the world on strategic matters of practical importance to them, including succession, risk and mediation. Murphy qualified as a solicitor with Allen & Overy, becoming a partner in 2007. In 2009, she was a founding partner of Maurice Turnor Gardner. As a solicitor she advised wealthy families, trust companies and banks in connection with a range of wealth matters, including tax planning, risk management and family governance, disharmony and disputes.

29 January 2020

• Mishcon de Reya appoints Patrick Harney as a partner in the tax team. Harney, formerly head of private client at Forsters, specialises in cross-border tax advice and planning with a particular focus on US/UK and UK/Irish tax, trust and estate planning and UK resident non-domiciled tax planning.
• Crowe appoints dispute resolution specialist Grant Summers to its national tax resolutions and investigations team. Summers has more than 35 years of experience in tax investigations and dispute resolution both for HMRC and in private practice and in his new role he will advise on dispute resolution work involving corporate, personal and employment taxes. He will be based in the firm’s Manchester office.
• Squire Patton Boggs opens an office in Milan with a four-partner multidisciplinary team, including tax partner Fabrizio Vismara.

22 January 2020

• Clifford Chance appoints Dan Neidle as the new London head of the firm's tax, pensions and employment (TPE) practice for a period of four years, from 1 February 2020. Neidle has been a partner at Clifford Chance since 2008, having joined as a trainee in 1998. He specialises in UK finance and corporate tax, with a particular interest in international tax, supranational taxation and tax policy. His clients include leading financial institutions and corporates, as well as regulators, governments and industry bodies.
• Taxand announces that three new member firms have joined the organisation, effective from 1 January 2020. The three new member firms are Herzog Fox & Neeman (HFN), in Israel, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, in Japan, and Arteo in Belgium. The new additions mean that Taxand now has 50 member firms in total.

17 January 2020

• Ropes & Gray promotes Chris Agnoli to counsel in the firm’s London office. Agnoli covers all areas of corporate tax, including cross-border mergers and acquisitions, private equity and hedge fund structuring, employment tax, financial markets transactions, and real estate. His clients have included institutional investors, investment managers, hedge funds, private equity funds, REITs and public companies.
• PwC appoints Caroline Bevan as office senior partner for its new north of London office, in Watford. Bevan has been with the firm for more than 20 years, and she has a background in privately owned businesses and tax.

8 January 2020

• Mercer & Hole promotes Jacqui Gudgion to partner in the firm’s corporate and business tax team. Gudgion has expertise in tax planning for reconstructions and reorganisations, profit extraction, capital gains tax, inheritance tax, research & development relief claims, enterprise management incentives and the enterprise investment scheme.
• PwC opens its new Birmingham office, One Chamberlain Square, the firm’s largest UK office outside of London.
• Norton Rose Fullbright promotes Richard Wright to tax partner in the firm’s New York office and Candice Gibson to tax director in the Johannesburg office.

6 January 2020

• Vinson & Elkins promotes Andrew Callaghan to counsel, effective from 1 January. Callaghan focuses on the tax aspects of domestic and international corporate and finance transactions, as well as providing structuring and consultancy advice.
• Hogan Lovells promotes Fiona Bantock to partner in its London tax office. Bantock’s expertise spans corporate tax, individual tax, employee benefits and executive compensation.
• haysmacintyre appoints James Walker as a partner in its expanding private client team. Walker joins from Buzzacott, where he was a partner and head of private clients. As well as looking after the personal tax affairs for UK domiciled individuals, he also specialises in the taxation of non-UK domiciled individuals and offshore trust and company structures. His appointment is said to follow a year of unprecedented growth for haysmacintyre, which saw overall turnover increase by 14% to £33m, and all service lines grow by 10% or more.
• Raffingers promotes Mehul Thaker to partner. Thaker specialises in strategic business planning, cashflow management and profit improvement, in addition to tax services to SMEs.
• Sidley Austin promotes Chicago based tax specialist Scott Pollock to partner, effective 1 January 2020.

11 December 2019

• KPMG appoints Amar Thakrar as a partner within its global compliance and transformation team. Thakrar joins KPMG’s tax practice in London from multinational healthcare company GSK. In his new role, he will advise clients on building and operating leading tax functions.
• Accountancy firm BHP appoints Joanne Powell as a tax partner in the firm’s Leeds office. She joins from Murray Harcourt.

6 December 2019

• RSM appoints VAT specialist Sarah Halsted as technical associate director. Halsted, formerly of BDO, is based in the firm’s London Farringdon Street office.
• The merger between accountancy firm Smith & Williamson and wealth management business Tilney has been approved by the European Commission. In a statement the Commission concluded that the proposed transaction did not raise any competition concerns.
• Goodwin appoints Romina Weiss as a partner in the firm’s tax practice. Weiss advises public and private U.S. and international companies and private investment funds on tax issues arising from complex business transactions and is based in the firm’s New York office.

3 December 2019

• Davis Polk & Wardwell promotes Dominic Foulkes to counsel in the tax team of the firm’s London office. Foulkes advises on UK tax issues across the firm's practice, including in connection with corporate acquisitions and reorganizations, corporate and structured finance, intellectual property and capital markets transactions.
• Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner promotes Cathryn Benedict to partner in the firm’s tax advice and controversy group. She is based in St. Louis.
• EY acquires AgilityWorks, a SAP technology consultancy business headquartered in Oxford with offices in the UK, Portugal and India. The AgilityWorks team will join with the EY UK&I SAP practice and operate as EY AgilityWorks.
• Pinsent Masons appoints Andrew Sackey as a contentious tax partner in its London office. Sackey has many years’ experience in significant fraud and civil tax compliance investigations in the UK and internationally. He joins from the fraud investigation service at HMRC where he led its offshore corporate and wealthy enforcement division since its inception in 2016.
• Grant Thornton appoints Lee Holloway as partner. Holloway has more than 20 years’ experience in consumer business and tax risk management, specialising in the retail and consumer business sector, having worked in-house leading the tax functions at Next plc and Halfords plc and working as a tax director at Molson Coors, a US listed global brewer.

29 November 2019

• Macfarlanes partners Ashley Greenbank (corporate tax) and Robert Vos (tax, trust and estate planning advice) are appointed as deputy high court judges in England & Wales.
• RSM appoints Irfan Butt as a tax partner in its real estate and construction team. Butt, formerly of PwC, has more than 15 years’ experience in advising real estate funds on tax structuring.
• Progeny appoints Tony Maleham and Adele Swaine as directors of Progeny Tax, the firm’s new tax services offering. Both join from Mazars.
• BDO appoints Vanessa Lee as a tax partner in the private client team. Lee, formerly of EY, has more than 22 years’ experience advising HNWI individuals, families, family offices and trustees on complex tax planning. She will be based in the firm’s Leeds office.

22 November 2019

• Edwin Coe promotes tax partner Sean Bannister to head of tax. Bannister, who joined the firm in 2012, has over a decade’s experience acting for high-net worth and ultra-high-net worth individuals and families and their advisers. 
• RPC updates its partnership structure, moving from being an all-equity partnership to offering its lawyers five options for senior legal careers at the firm, with immediate effect. The firm said the updated structure reflected ‘changing expectations of people, market and client demand’. The status of its current 76 equity partners will remain unchanged, the move only applies to future promotions and hires.
• Baker McKenzie reappoints Alex Chadwick as managing partner of the London office for a second term. The term is for three years, effective from 1 January 2020. Chadwick headed the firm's tax practice group in London and was on the firm’s Europe tax transactions steering committee, before being appointed London managing partner in September 2016.

18 November 2019

• Mazars appoints Frank Strachan as partner and head of tax investigations. Strachan, formerly of Edwin Coe, has more than 30 years’ experience in representing clients subject to HMRC investigations.
• Taylor Wessing appoints Liz Wilson as a partner in its tax and incentives practice. Wilson, formerly of Squire Patton Boggs, has considerable experience working on cross-border tax issues across a range of areas, including corporate transactions, private equity, commercial agreements, real estate and construction transactions, projects and debt finance.
• Accountancy firm Cowgills appoints three new senior advisors to its tax team. Emma Bowles, formerly of Grant Thornton, joins as a tax manager working with the corporate finance and business recovery teams. VAT manager Abigail O’Neill joins from EY and will be advising on complex VAT matters. Lyndsey Hay joins from Booth Ainsworth as a personal tax manager and will be advising HNWIs, partnerships and trusts.

11 November 2019

• Julian Ghosh QC and Jonathan Bremner QC join One Essex Court. Ghosh’s practice covers all areas of taxation. He is particularly well known for his corporate work and that involving European taxation issues. Bremner’s practice focuses on complex, substantial tax litigation and advisory work. They both regularly act for large multinationals, listed companies, and high-net-worth individuals, as well as public bodies.
• Fladgate appoints Mark Spash as partner in its private wealth team. Spash, formerly of Blake Morgan, advises on a wide range of private client matters with particular emphasis on inheritance tax and estate planning for domestic and international HNWIs, families and trustees.

4 November 2019

• Linklaters appoints Chris Smale as a partner in the London tax practice. Smale, currently a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, will play a key role in advising funds and financial sponsors, as well as corporate clients, across all practices and sectors. He is a Linklaters alumnus, having qualified into the London tax practice in 2006.
• Mayer Brown appoints Matthew Mortimer as a partner in its tax transactions and consulting practice. Mortimer, formerly of Milbank, maintains an extensive practice, which includes advising on the taxation of banking, corporate and structured finance transactions, as well as on debt restructurings, mergers and acquisitions and investment fund formation. He will be based in London.
• Gateley Capitus appoints capital allowances specialist Steven Bone as a director in its London office. Bone, formerly of Baldwins Accountants, is a tax-qualified chartered surveyor and specialises in capital allowances and related property tax reliefs.
• KPMG appoints tax specialist Marc Abrams to run its East Midlands practice as senior partner of its Leicester and Nottingham offices.
• CW Energy appoints UK oil tax specialist Andrew Lister as a new partner based in London.  He joins the firm from RSM.

30 October 2019

• Jim Harra is confirmed as HMRC's new chief executive and first permanent secretary. Harra had been covering the role since 1 October.
• International law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP appoints Jenny Doak as a tax partner in the London office. Doak, formerly from Vinson & Elkins, has a versatile practice covering restructurings, public and private M&A, joint ventures, financings, debt and equity capital markets and loan acquisitions.

24 October 2019

• Mel Stride MP, former financial secretary to the Treasury, is elected as the new chair of the Treasury Committee, taking the position with immediate effect. Stride replaces Nicky Morgan MP who stepped down as chair in July when she was appointed to the Cabinet as secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport.
• The  VAT Practitioners Group appoints Michael Ridsdale as its president with immediate effect, succeeding Michael Conlon QC. Ridsdale is a tax partner at Wedlake Bell. The VPG is an association of VAT specialists in the UK drawn from the accounting profession, the bar, law firms, independent VAT practices as well as in-house VAT advisers from all sectors of business.
• Qubic Tax appoints Aadil Masood as tax investigations manager. Masood, formerly of inTAX, assists clients and their professional advisers on HMRC enquiries and investigations at all stages through to settlement. He will be based in the firm’s London office.

22 October 2019

• Travers Smith appoints that Cathryn Vanderspar as a consultant in its tax department. Vanderspar is the former head of tax at Eversheds Sutherland, and she is a senior tax lawyer with more 30 years of experience. She specialises in real estate and funds taxation.
• Norton Rose Fulbright appoints tax lawyer Florent Trouiller as a partner in its Luxembourg office. Trouiller, formerly of Dechert, practises tax law with a particular focus on cross-border private equity and real estate investments.
• Kirkland & Elli s appoints private equity tax specialist Mavnick Nerwal as tax partner. Nerwal joins from Linklaters.

18 October 2019

• RSM appoints John Foskett, formerly of Grant Thornton, as a corporate tax partner to its Bristol office. Foskett has over 20 years’ experience advising mid-market businesses. RSM also promotes London-based corporate tax specialist Andrew Lutton to director.

15 October 2019

• HMRC appoints Melissa Tatton as its tax assurance commissioner. Tatton, who will retain her current duties as chief executive of the Valuation Office Agency (an executive agency of HMRC), takes over as tax assurance commissioner from Jim Harra following his appointment as HMRC interim chief executive. She also becomes chair of the professional standards committee and head of the tax profession. The tax assurance commissioner role was introduced in 2012 to strengthen HMRC’s governance and assurance of tax disputes.

14 October 2010

• HSBC Life (UK) Ltd appoints Mark Green, formerly of Legal & General, as a senior taxation and trust manager.
• Rayner Essex appoints Jason Croke as VAT director. Croke, formerly of Haines Watts, has more than 22 years’ experience in VAT and also provides advice on stamp duty land taxes and import duties.
• White & Case promotes Estelle Philippi to partner in its global tax practice. Based in Paris, Philippi focuses on mergers and acquisitions, international and domestic tax planning, corporate tax advice and tax-related litigation, advising private equity funds, corporates and financial institutions on the tax structuring of investments, and disposals and other matters relating to international and French law.
• Pinsent Masons launches its client and legal project management division to help support delivery of matters on time and on budget. The CLPM division is led by UK-based Dee Tamlin and comprises more than 20 project managers and staff. Pinsent Masons is continuing to recruit in the UK, Asia Pacific and the Middle East while already offering the service on a global basis.

7 October 2019

• Gibson Dunn & Crutcher appoints Benjamin Fryer, formerly of Mayer Brown, as tax partner.
• Mazars appoints partner Clive Fathers to lead its national specialist tax services team. Fathers, formerly of Grant Thornton, will lead a team of 50 across the UK covering immigration and global mobility advisory services, employment taxes, reward, tax risk, assurance and investigations services.
• Mazars promotes Neil Strong to tax partner in the firm’s Glasgow office.
• Birmingham-based law firm The Wilkes Partnership appoints specialist tax and estate planning lawyer Philip Harrison as a consultant within its private client team. Harrison has more than three decades experience advising business owners and HNWIs. He was previously national head of tax at Eversheds.
• Michael Avient joins Temple Tax Chambers. Avient is a former director of Arlington Tax Ltd and he advises on tax investigations and litigation.

3 October 2019

• Price Bailey appoints Chris Williamson as a tax partner in its Mayfair office. Williamson, formerly of TLT, has 13 years’ experience in advising international families, trustees and banks on cross-border tax, trusts and estate planning issues.
• Kirkland & Ellis promotes Brad Hillson to tax partner in its London office. Hillson advises private funds, investment managers, financial institutions and corporates on UK and international tax transactions and advisory matters. His experience includes acting on reorganisations, debt restructurings, cross-border private equity and M&A transactions; he has particular experience in advising private funds on international tax structuring and acting on the financing and acquisition of distressed debt portfolios.
• Goodwin Proctor promotes Katie Leah to partner based in the firm’s London office. Leah focuses on the tax aspects of all types of private equity work, including UK, multi-jurisdictional, and pan-European M&A, and advises on UK corporation tax, VAT, and stamp taxes as well as management packages and share incentive schemes.
• Shoosmiths appoints tax partner Anika Chandra to its London office. Chandra, formerly of Stephenson Harwood, has experience in all aspects of tax on employee incentives, including the design and implementation of share plans and cash bonus arrangements, termination of employment, corporate transactions and reporting and other compliance obligations.
• The Institute of Directors (IoD) appoints Grant Thornton executive Jonathan Geldart as its next director general.
• Scottish firm Johnston Carmichael opens its first London office, expanding its financial services offering.
• Dentons promotes Joyce Zijlstra to partner in the Amsterdam office. Zijlstra has more than 15 years’ experience in consulting on value-added tax (VAT) and has recently developed a strong focus on data analytics, VAT automation and tax assurance projects for indirect tax.  where she will focus on developing the firm’s indirect tax offering in the Netherlands.
• MHA MacIntyre Hudson acquires Martin Pooley’s accountancy practice in Norwich. The practice specialises in the tour operators margin scheme (TOMS).

27 September 2019

• Jim Harra has been confirmed as HMRC’s interim chief executive and interim accounting officer with immediate effect from 1 October. Former chief executive, Sir Jonathan Thompson, officially left HMRC on 30 September to take up a new role as chief executive of the Financial Reporting Council. Harra will remain as interim chief executive until a permanent appointment is made.
• HMRC appoints Michael Hearty, Patricia Gallan and Paul Morton as board directors. They will work alongside lead non-executive Mervyn Walker and existing non-executive directors Juliette Scott, Simon Ricketts and Alice Maynard. Hearty becomes chair of the HMRC audit and risk committee, of which he was already a member, overseeing the financial performance and propriety of the department. Gallan is a former senior police officer and was assistant commissioner in the Specialist Crime and Operations of the Metropolitan Police. Morton is the former tax director of the Office of Tax Simplification, and before that he was the tax director for RELX Group plc.
• Former World Bank chief executive Kristalina Georgieva takes over from Christine Lagarde as managing director and executive board chair of the International Monetary Fund.
• CBW appoints private client tax partner Martina Fitzgerald to join its tax team. Fitzgerald, formerly of Menzies, advises a wide range of clients.
• Mercer & Hole promotes Henry Lowe to private client partner, effective 1 October. Lowe joined Mercer & Hole as a trainee in 2010 and is a CTA. He is based in the firm’s Lombard Street office.
• LCN Legal launches an online ‘fast track’ service for the creation of intercompany agreements for transfer pricing compliance. The new service is an online platform allowing the production of tailored intercompany agreements within two to four business days.
  
• haysmacintyre appoints Tim Davies as head of tax. Davies, formerly of Mazars, has over 25 years’ experience providing tax advice to entrepreneurs and owners of large private businesses, as well as listed and multinational corporations.
• Thrings appoints inheritance and tax planning specialist Penny Munro as a senior associate. Munro, formerly of Farnfields Solictors, has more than 20 years’ experience in all aspects of private client law. She will be based in the firm’s Bath and Bristol office.

23 September 2019

• Deloitte Legal will offer training contracts to university graduates for the first time from next autumn. Applications are now open and successful applicants will commence their legal training for the new solicitors qualifying examination (SQE) from September 2020, qualifying as solicitors in 2023.
• John Thornton has been announced as AAT’s (Association of Accounting Technicians) 39th president. Thornton is an independent adviser and writer on business transformation, innovation and finance, and has extensive board level experience in both the public and private sectors.
• Collyer Bristow appoints James Austen as a partner in the tax and estate planning team. Austen, formerly of Charles Russell Speechlys, has extensive experience acting for HNWIs, entrepreneurs and business owners.
• Goodwin appoints Robert Young as a partner in the firm’s tax practice. Young, formerly of Taylor Wessing, advises corporate and personal clients on the tax implications of many transactions, including venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, and private equity fund structuring and transactions. 
• Milestone Tax joins Anderson Tax, the Anderson Global member firm in the UK. Miles Dean, founding partner of Milestone Tax, becomes a partner at Anderson Tax. Andersen Global has five locations in the UK through its member and collaborating firms.
• Smith & Williamson and Tilney agree to combine their respective businesses. The merged business will be named Tilney Smith & Williamson. The transaction is expected to complete in early 2020, subject to regulatory approvals.
• Menzies appoints Sehjal Gupta as a tax director in the private client team. Gupta, formerly of RSM UK, has 15 years’ tax experience advising HNWIs, including non-doms. She will be based at the firm’s London office.
• BDO appoints David Boyce as a tax partner in the firm’s Guildford office. Boyce, formerly of Menzies, will advise entrepreneurs and OMBs.

16 September 2019

• Kreston Reeves appoints Dan Mundroina as a private client tax director. Mundroina, formerly of RSM, advises wealthy individuals and their families on all aspects of trusts, inheritance tax and personal tax matters. The firm has also appointed 34 new trainees and students across its offices in London, Kent and Sussex.
• Grant Thornton appoints Susan Roberts as a senior manager in corporate tax in its Aberdeen office. An oil and gas sector expert, Susan joins the firm from the Kanoo Group, based in UAE and Oman.
• Accountancy firm Shaw Gibbs appoint James Painter as head of tax. Painter, formerly of Throgmorton, has over 13 years’ experience in tax, working with owner-managers on M&A, and cross border and international tax issues. He will lead the combined personal and corporate tax teams in Oxford and London.

9 September 2019

• European Commission president-elect Ursula von der Leyen has presented her team and the new structure of the next European Commission. Executive vice-president Margrethe Vestager (Denmark) will coordinate the EC’s agenda on digital, and she remains the Competition Commissioner. Paolo Gentiloni (Italy) is new commissioner responsible for the economy, which includes customs and taxation policy. See bit.ly/2lJxtmT.
• Catherine McKinnell MP is appointed as interim chair of the Treasury Committee until a new chair has been elected. Previous interim chair John Mann MP has stepped down. The election for the new chair was expected to take place on Wednesday 11 September, but has been postponed now that Parliament has prorogued.
• CogitalGroup and its London division, Blick Rothenberg, acquires Rees Pollock. Formed in 1990 and based in London, Rees Pollock specialises 
  in advising owner managed businesses.
  
• Global accounting and consultancy network Moore Stephens International rebrands as Moore Global. The network has more than 260 independent firms in 112 countries.

6 September 2019

• ForrestBrown appoints James Dudbridge as an associate director with responsibility for the company’s advisory service. Dudbridge, formerly of Burges Salmon, will provide strategic R&D tax credit advice to both SMEs and large companies.
• DLA Piper appoints tax specialist Sean Murray as partner in its recently opened Dublin office. Murray, formerly of Dillon Eustace, advises on financial services tax matters, including investment management, structured finance, real estate, banking, capital markets and private equity.
• Bird & Bird appoints Benjamin Lichtle to lead the firm's tax practice in France. Lichtle, formerly of French law firm Fidal, is a highly experienced corporate tax lawyer with extensive expertise in the tax aspects of both domestic and international companies.
• Baldwins appoints Liz Rothery as a new associate tax director. Rothery specialises in inheritance tax and trust planning.

3 September 2019

30 August 2019

• Ashurst appoints Anders Kraft as a partner and head of tax in Germany. Kraft, formerly of  Shearman & Sterling will be based in the firm’s Frankfurt office. He specialises in national and international tax advice related to M&A, private equity and financings, as well as on capital markets transactions and internal corporate restructurings, general tax planning and tax disputes.
• PwC promotes Katharine Adlard to director, financial services tax. She is based in Bristol.
• Fieldfisher appoints Peter Golden as the new head of its private client practice. He will join from Linklaters this autumn, where he has led the trusts team since 2016.

20 August 2019

• Tilney, the investment and financial planning group, confirms it is in exclusive merger discussions with Smith & Williamson.
• Eileen Marshall joins international law firm Cooley as partner and member of its tax practice. She arrives from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and will divide her time between Cooley’s Washington, DC, and Palo Alto offices.

5 August 2019

• BDO appoints Ian Bowden and Jon Claypole as tax partners. Bowden, a tax technology expert, has over twenty years’ experience in tax. Prior to his appointment he led the national tax technology practice at PwC. Claypole, formerly of Mazars, joins the firm’s tax dispute resolution team and will focus on resolving disputes with HMRC with a focus on corporates.
• haysmacintyre promotes Trevor D’Sa to tax partner and appoints Reshma Patel as a tax director. D’Sa has over 30 years’ experience providing tax advice across all disciplines and is primarily focused on private client work. Patel, formerly of UHY Hacker Young, specialises in corporate tax, advising companies and their owners on tax compliance and strategic planning.
• Specialist R&D tax credit consultancy ForrestBrown appoints Patrick Totty as a director, responsible for driving new business generation, at its London office.
• MHA MacIntyre Hudson appoints John Rossiter as a director to lead the indirect tax practice. Rossiter, formerly of Grant Thornton, has over 24 years’ experience advising clients on VAT and other indirect tax matters. He will mainly be based in the firm’s London and Reading offices.
• Specialist tax advisory service Obsidian Tax appoints Lucas Harding-Cox, formerly of PwC, as technical director.

25 July 2019

• EY announces 57 new equity partners to its UK partnership. This year’s new partner cohort contains 34% women (compared to 19% in 2018) and 22% black and minority ethnic (BME) (17% in 2018). EY's new tax partners are Jonathan Boddy, Andrew Eggleston, Tina Ganatra, Rosie Higgins, Caroline Macaskill, Daniel Rees, Mark Lee, John Radcliffe, Kelly Richardson-Lewis and Amit Thaker.
• RSM appoints Aysha Marley as a tax director based in Hull. Marley, formerly of PwC, has more than 12 years’ experience of working with private clients on personal tax issues.

22 July 2019

• Sir Jonathan Thompson will leave HMRC in the Autumn after more than three years as its chief executive and first permanent secretary. Thomson will become chief executive, initially of the Financial Reporting Council and then of the Audit, Reporting and Governance Authority (ARGA) when it takes over as regulator. HMRC's recruitment process will begin shortly and an announcement about a successor will be made in due course.
• The Financial Times appoints Tabby Kinder as its new tax and accountancy correspondent. Kinder joins from The Times, where she was the paper's professional services correspondent.
  
• Yorkshire and North Derbyshire based accountancy firm BHP appoints Tom Roseff as a tax partner. He joins the firm from Armstrong Watson.

16 July 2019

• UHY Hacker Young appoints Neela Chauhan as a partner in the firm’s private client tax team in London. Chauhan, formerly of Wilson Wright, has more than 20 years’ experience advising clients on their personal and business affairs. She assists with all aspects of compliance and tax planning relating to income tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and succession planning.
• Corporate tax specialist Mike Lea, formerly of Smith and Williamson, joins PKF Francis Clark as the managing partner of their new Bristol office.
• Irwin Mitchell appoints tax accountant Ashley Hill as partner to its London tax, trusts and estates team. Hill, formerly of BDO, specialises in the taxation of HNWIs with complex and varied affairs often across multiple jurisdictions.
• Grant Thornton launches a new AI tool to help organisations prepare for IR35 ahead of next April's changes to the rules. 

8 July 2019

• Baker McKenzie appoints Prabhu Narasimhan as partner in its tax and corporate practice in London. Narasimhan, formerly of White & Case, has significant experience in advising and delivering complex cross-border mandates for his corporate, private equity and family office clients around the world. His specialism expands across family offices, private equity, mergers and acquisitions, funds and associated regulatory issues. He is qualified in both English and Indian law.
• Baker McKenzie also appoints Antonio Russo as chair of its global tax practice group. Russo, based in Amsterdam, specializes in transfer pricing design and implementation and has more than 20 years of experience in tax planning, structuring and restructuring engagements. He succeeds Simone Musa whose term as chair recently concluded.
• The Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) announces a new ATT foundation level qualification in transfer pricing.
• RSM appoints Susan Ball as new UK employment tax partner in London. Ball is vice president of the CIOT, and she joins RSM from Crowe UK.

2 July 2019

• Charles Russell Speechlys has appointed Sophie Dworestzsky into its tax, trusts and succession team in London. Dworestzsky joins in the autumn from Withers, where she was a partner in its private client team.
• PwC promotes 69 new equity partners, of which 19 are in tax, bringing the firm’s total UK partner number to 944. PwC also appoints Marissa Thomas as head of tax. Thomas, who previously led the firm’s deals practice, has over 22 years’ experience of advising private equity, sovereign investors and large corporate clients on tax related matters on transactions.
• haysmacintyre appoints Jeremy Beard as the new managing partner of the firm, effective immediately. Beard has been a partner at the firm for 24 years and is currently head of the professional institutes and membership bodies sector team.
• Deloitte promotes Tess Williams to partner in its tax practice in Wales. Williams leads the global employer services practice across Deloitte’s Cardiff and Bristol offices. The firm also promotes Debbie Hatherell, Jamie Bedford and Joanne Hale as directors. All are based in Wales.
• Travers Smith promotes Jonathan Woodall to the role of senior counsel in its tax department, with effect from 1 July. Woodall's practice involves advising corporates, asset managers, property investors and pension funds on a wide variety of direct and indirect tax matters.
• The CIOT and ICAS have announced a strategic partnership and a new joint qualification in accountancy and tax. The new joint programme, which will be available from September 2019, allows students to study for both the CA (chartered accountant) and CTA (chartered tax adviser) qualifications at the same time.

26 June 2019

• The CIOT appoints Helen Whiteman as its new chief executive effective from 2 September 2019. Whiteman joins from CILEx Regulation Ltd where she is currently chief executive, having previously been chief operating officer at the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives. She replaces Peter Fanning, who is retiring.
• Kingston Smith appoints tax dispute resolution specialist John Hood as partner. Hood, formerly of Gabelle, has over 20 years’ experience in dealing with complex and serious tax investigations launched by HMRC. He will lead the firm’s tax dispute resolution activities.

17 June 2019

• Deloitte appoints Laurence Kiddle as a partner in its London tax management consulting team. Kiddle, formerly of Thomson Reuters, will focus on expanding the market for tax technology implementation services. 
• RSM appoints associate director Adam Jones and R&D tax specialist Jade Bedford to its private client and corporate tax teams respectively. Jones has almost 30 years’ experience advising on all aspects of private client tax whilst working at EY, Deloitte and PwC. Bedford previously worked at Unilever as an R&D chemist, before moving to KPMG where she worked in tax, specialising in innovation tax reliefs including R&D and patent box. Both will be based in the firm’s Leeds office.
• PwC Ireland promotes five new tax partners: Joe Conboy, Aoife Harrison, Peter Reilly, Susan Roche and Stephen Ruane.
• EY appoints Justine Belton to the firm's board. She will also take on the role of professional practice director and UK audit compliance principal. Beloton is currently an assurance partner within EY's professional practice group, having been with the firm for more than 27 years.
• KPMG appoints Phil Abram as chair of the firm’s London region practice and leader of the national market team. Abram has been with KPMG since 1996 and was appointed partner in 2005. He has previously led the transaction services practice as well as the regional deal advisory team.

10 June 2019

• Glyn Fullelove becomes president of the CIOT. Fullelove has more than 30 years’ experience in tax and has previously been head of tax at four UK headquartered quoted FTSE 250 or FTSE 100 companies, most recently with Informa plc. Independent tax consultant Peter Rayney becomes deputy president. His main specialisms are corporate tax, company reorganisations, corporate finance tax (including company sales and acquisitions) and all aspects of owner managed business taxation. Susan Ball becomes vice president. She is a partner and head of national employers advisory services, employment tax/NICs, reward & expatriate tax at Crowe UK.
• Technical consultant Fiona Wilkinson becomes president of the ICAEW. David Matthews, a partner at KPMG, becomes deputy president and Will Brooks, managing director of Eximus Capital, becomes vice president.
• Yorkshire based accountancy firm BHP appoints chartered tax adviser Peter Dobson. He joins the firm from Deloitte.
• RSM appoints Phil Melia as a corporate tax director based in the firm's new Cambridge office. Melia, formerly of PwC, has extensive experience of working with scaling businesses, from entrepreneurs through to rapidly expanding multinationals.
• KPMG International appoints Lachlan Wolfers as lobal head of indirect taxes. Wolfers, who has held several leadership roles at the firm, is currently based in Hong Kong.
• BDO promotes four new tax partners: Steve Watts (London); Paul Townson (Birmingham); Steve Hoon (Southampton) and Lyndon Firth (Leeds).

3 June 2019

• PwC appoints James Badcock, formerly head of private client at law firm Collyer Bristow, to its private client tax and legal practice in London. Badcock, who joined Collyer Bristow in 2011 from Macfarlanes, is a specialist in UK and international tax and estate planning and advises private clients, trustees, family offices and financial institutions. He joins a growing private client legal practice headed by partner, Clare Stirzaker. The move is said to highlight PwC’s continued commitment to grow its integrated legal business.
• PKF Littlejohn appoints Howard Jones as a business tax partner specialising in the insurance sector. Jones has more than 30 years of experience in financial services and joins from Grant Thornton, where he led the insurance tax team. He has also worked for Aon, the insurance broker, and two of the big four accountancy firms.
• PKF Francis Clark appoints SDLT specialist Nigel Popplewell as senior tax consultant. Popplewell, formerly of Burges Salmon, specialises in all aspects of tax law, both contentious and non-contentious.
• The Simmons Gainsford Group appoints Fiona Cross as tax partner. Cross, formerly of Baker Tilly, is a corporate tax expert with over 20 years’ experience, including advising on corporate reorganisation, acquisitions and disposals, companies seeking investor funding, employee share schemes and R&D tax credits.