Stephen J.
Dann
~ ITPA~
UK Tax Advisor
Experience and
References
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My forty year career commenced with 18 months' training in a
small firm of Chartered Accountants where I worked as
Accounts Clerk and later Accounts Supervisor and Manager
establishing a new branch office in Essex. I left this
position to join the Inland Revenue in Dagenham, Essex,
as Executive Officer for three years, supervising staff
and administering a portfolio of complex tax cases. As a
young Inland Revenue officer it was I who originated the
case of Kirvell vs Guy.
I left the Inland Revenue to work as Consultant to a
small firm of Chartered Accountants in London, where I
passed my professional examinations. One year later I
left to join Kidsons, Chartered Accountants, in Aldwych,
London, again in a consultancy role, where I specialised
in Company Directors and High Net Worth
individuals.
My final position in the City was with dePaula Turner
Lake & Company where I handled the taxation affairs
of the Laker Directors and a portfolio of Lloyd's
Underwriters and High Net Worth individuals. With the
merger between dePaula Turner Lake & Company and
Littlejohn Frazer I established my own firm handling a
wide range of taxation issues, in addition to preparing
accounts for Self Employed individuals partnerships, and
Limited Companies.
My firm grew to employ two full-time staff and three
part-time sub-contractors before I sold much of the
accountancy side in order to specialise in taxation. It
is public knowledge that in 1987 I personally advised on
the taxation aspects of contractual arrangements between
the then England soccer team captain, Terry Butcher, and
Glasgow Rangers.
Through my present company based in Bangkok, where I employ
four staff. I now provide consultancy services to my personal
clientele, some having remained with me for more than two decades,
international teachers who are entitled to special taxation
treatment by virtue of a network of tax treaties, and a growing
community of clients via the internet. Some 20% of my work
through this website is with returning clients who have
appreciated the convenience, affordability, and reliability
of this service.
I maintain the entire site personally which enables me to
update it promptly without reference to a programmer and in
turn this brings a personal approach to the provision of
professional advice via this medium, where empathy and humility
are sometimes needed in order to handle the technical
issues which occasionally arise and can interfere with the service.
The number of clients affected by these over the life of the website
remains comfortably in single figures and represents less than
one percent of overall enquiries, and where such an issue
arises I make relevant enquiries of the website's Hosting
service and do two things: Act to reimburse or otherwise
satisfy the client; and make any adjustments necessary to
prevent the same issue arising in future. This has led to
a very effective level of client satisfaction but it would
be unrealistic to expect perfection, and dishonest to claim it.
I am a member of
Mensa with an IQ of
156.
My experience
covers a broad range of income tax, national insurance,
VAT, corporate taxation, capital gains tax, employment/
payroll operation, self-employed tradesmen and
professionals, ex-patriates, foreign workers in the UK,
HMRC investigations, business valuation and
sale/purchase negotiation, plus company secretarial
issues.
I ensure that my knowledge is current on all personal
taxation issues, thereby enabling me to attend to complex
professional partnerships, entertainers, foreign nationals,
ex-patriates, doctors, dentists, IT contractors, teachers,
et. al. I have, in the past, provided consultancy services
on mission-critical work for other professional firms that
otherwise would have been done by permanent employees or
established outside firms. In this capacity I have worked on
the taxation affairs of many "household" name clients on behalf
of other firms, particularly in the spheres of entertainment
and expatriates. There is, however, a corporate snobbery around
consultants in the larger professional firms and such work is
often perceived as a sign that the consultant is desperate and
cannot find "real" work so I prefer not to accept such assignments
now. Accepting challenging assignments on this basis enabled
me to leave behind the endless internal meetings, where dominant
participants talk too much, taking over the session and eclipsing their colleagues,
and which, in the larger firms, can absorb 30% to 40% of the time on a case.
In a small firm less effort is required to keep staff activities coordinated
and there is less scope for social loafing. In larger companies managers are often
so polite that barely competent mediocre people feel comfortable
sticking around and the cost of the inefficiency gets passed on
to the client in the traditional "big firm fees".
