I wonder how many readers of this blog had heard of Elaine Clark before I awarded her the 'best overnight budget summary' last week? Elaine qualified as a chartered accountant in 1988 and now and runs one of the fastest growing online accountancy practices in the UK. She established it in 2007 and has a
I've long been critical of the 'me too' type of overnight budget commentaries. Indeed, these days 'overnight' is slow and many commentaries appear online within hours. I have seen dozens of such identikit commentaries since the Chancellor sat down yesterday. Almost all contain pretty standard lists of the headline measures, cut and paste extracts from the
This is a bit of a rant, which is not my preferred style of blogging. I have just returned from a local group of tax advisers evening training session. It was supposed to be 'Tax planning with LLPs". That was the title in the promotional note, on the website and on the cover of the
One of the most common questions I'm asked, often by recruiters, is if I know a prospective new tax partner for a smaller or mid-size practice. Sadly I can rarely help directly - especially if, as is usually the case, the firm would like their new recruit to have a following (ie clients and fees).
I spent last night in the company of numerous ex colleagues from WJB Chiltern. It Was great seeing do many old friends. What has prompted this post though is a realization I had part way through the evening Almost without exception everyone of my Chiltern Alumni was working in onevof two types of firm. Either
Talking with a tax and financial adviser recently he told me that his firm is a heavy promoter of tax schemes. "Not a great fan myself" I said. His reply was almost the complete opposite of what I had expected: "I'm not surprised" he said. "Few people actually go ahead and implement the schemes." "So
I mentioned the Tax Advice Network in a recent post for the first time in ages. Newer readers of this blog who haven't read the mini profile piece (top right), may be unaware of the Network. Established in 2007 the Tax Advice Network is a resource and facility for accountants in practice. There's no charge
It seems that many in-house Tax Directors do not use their auditors for tax work and advice.This is one of the conclusions from Winmark’s third benchmarking survey of in-house Tax Directors. Out of over 100 respondents to the Tax Director Network survey, only one-third use their auditors for corporate tax planning, and only a quarter
I recently blogged about the 5 things accountants can do to make more profits. Selling tax schemes was not on the list. Why not? Quite simply because the idea is vastly over rated, over hyped and mis-understood. (Typically by non-tax specialists). There are plenty of people who will tell you that you can generate
Let's face it, few accountants have detailed procedures in place to ensure they do all they need to do when they lose a client. The simple reason for this is that it doesn't happen often enough to warrant a detailed procedure and even when it does occur there's rarely a problem. The larger firms lose
Probably the most sensible thing any adviser can do is to recognize their limitations. Most accountants are like GPs. Great at dealing with day to day issues. Every now and then though when you visit the doctor they recommend you see a specialist. Indeed you’d be very worried if the GP suggested you hop up
I'm told that this is the view of a senior Insolvency practitioner. What does that say about the advice being provided by accountants? Are they just missing out on opportunities or are they failing their clients? I'd like to hope that this doesn't apply to any of the regular readers of this blog (if there
One of the pressures that all ambitious accountants endure is the need to advise on issues that do not arise every day. The more experience you have the more confidence you gain to know whether or not you have enough knowledge to give the advice without double checking it's right. Double checking might simply involve
As the preparation continues for a new seminar I'm presenting next month I started to think about the specific tax advice that might be relevant as the economy moves toward a recession. Let me stress that I'm referring here to the technical definition (two consecutive quarters of negative growth). From a personal perspective I see
This was another of the thoughts I had during the workshop that followed an E-business for accountants seminar that I attended. (I've already commented on the seminar here and here). One of the workshop leaders was suggesting that accountants should be more prepared to 'upskill' their clients as regards their e-business strategy. I asked whether he
I was delighted to be able to attend the ICAEW Tax Faculty's annual Wyman debate last week. The motion under debate was: This House believes that the balance between the rights of the citizen and the powers of the taxing authority has tilted too far towards HMRC Speakers for the motion were Francesca Lagerberg and
These have evolved a great deal over the last few years, both to reflect the changing approach of HMRC and also the feedback from accountants and their clients. I must admit that I'm torn. If I were still in practice I'm sure I'd want to ensure that my clients had this sort of cover. Equally
I'm often asked what prompted me to create the Tax Advice Network. Having spent three years running the tax support for professionals operation at WJB Chiltern I had become aware of how much accountants both valued the facility to secure expert tax support and yet, at the same time resented the traditional approach: A BIG
I created this list recently for a forthcoming article in the professional press. It's drawn from my talk, How to avoid tax related professional negligence claims, which I have been presenting all over the UK for the last few years. 1 - When providing tax advice always state the known facts on which your advice
Funny how some topics become topical. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a piece 'Outsourcing - doesn’t have to mean an overseas call centre'. Then last week I noted that a new debate has started on AccountingWeb: “We believe British Accountants can only benefit from growth in outsourcing." For those who don't visit
I received a letter today (in error I suspect) from an accountancy firm that provides services to other members of the accountancy profession. Funny that. It's what the Tax Advice Network does too. And we're not an accountancy firm so are not perceived as being in competition with the accountants who refer work to our
When you hear someone talking about outsourcing, you probably immediately think about those annoying call centres based overseas. But there is much more to outsourcing than a call centre. Recently I was told about a great piece of business advice: Most people worry about what they're not good at. Don't. Concentrate on what you
I have just read a report in Accountancy Magazine about some research published by the UK 200 group*. The report notes that: Clients are more likely to ditch their accountants for giving therm incorrect or poor advice than for being too expensive......Clients only rate high fees as the THIRD most important reason for switching accountants
Years ago when I joined a new firm I remember an audit partner telling me about two tax managers in his team He preferred ‘Dana’ because she always knew the answers. He didn’t like ‘Susie’ as much because she was never sure of anything and always wanted to check with a tax partner. I expressed
I noted last week that I was not one for making predictions generally. Instead I simply set out my (accountancy related )hopes for 2008. Since then I've had cause to consider what new trends there may be this year. Here's what I've said: 1 - More clients will be texting communications to their accountants. NB:
