WHAT GIVES EDGE TAX CONSULTANCY THE EDGE? ALLISON PLAGER FINDS OUT
If you want something to fit perfectly, let’s say your wedding dress, you don’t just pop into the local chain store, however good it is. Rather you find a boutique that specialises in wedding dresses, where you can feel confident you will end up with the gown of your dreams.
This isn’t just because your wishes are taken account of, but also because the designer will have the expertise to suggest ideas that you won’t have thought of.
So it is with tax. No doubt plenty of high net worth individuals do settle for a more than adequate service with an excellent firm of accountants, but others will want to go to an adviser who focuses on that type of client and can come up with innovative and new solutions.
All right, but…
This is where boutique tax firms come to the fore. Few tax advisers can advise across all taxes these days, so wherever you practise your profession, you are likely to specialise in one area of tax. A boutique firm goes a step further, concentrating on a particular type of client or tax.
Edge Tax Consultancy was established five years ago by Anton Lane. It has particular niche skills in offshore structuring, cross-jurisdictional planning, remuneration planning and tax disclosures involving offshore elements.
Anton had worked with a couple of big four firms. First with Ernst & Young tax investigations, where he focused on offshore matters. Then with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the firm’s trust arm (although this separated from PwC and was named The Abacus Group) where he did a lot of cross-jurisdictional planning with offshore clients.
He was subsequently headhunted to a large Channel Islands trust company where he became a director, setting up offshore structures and having considerable exposure to investment funds and international aspects of taxation This, he says ‘was very challenging and enjoyable’, and he was always involved in interesting and complicated projects.
However, while he found ‘the big four work interesting, apart from the photocopying in the early days’, he wasn’t ‘that fond of all parts of the corporate model especially those which hindered good client relations’.
So Anton took the plunge and set up Edge Tax.
Cutting edge
Given that Anton particularly enjoyed dealing with private clients, Edge Tax’s focus is on high net worth individuals who want to find ways of running their businesses tax efficiently, and create and protect their wealth.
Anton says ‘the work can be varied since we pride ourselves on being creative. We do not like to look at a tax issue in isolation; instead we gather information about what a client is trying to achieve in the short, medium and long term. All too often, advisers concentrate on the now, which may not help the future’.
The firm’s clients include listed companies, entrepreneurs, high net worth individuals and families and other intermediaries including accountants, tax advisers, solicitors, trustees and private banks.
Edging outwards
Expansion is a goal, says Anton, but ‘we want to continue being recognised by our clients and intermediary contacts as quality advisers delivering a superb service. We do want to grow, although we are not in a rush’.
He explains that ‘the growth of a boutique tax practice can be difficult – you need the right technical skills and ability to work within a small team. We are keen to explore expansion into other niche areas of tax and this is likely only to be achievable by identifying the right experts in the market to join us. We would like to look back in five years and see a successful niche tax practice with an excellent history with its clients’.
The firm is based in Cheltenham, a charming spa town in Gloucestershire. However, recognising that some might crave the excitement a city brings, Anton envisages the possibility of opening another office in Bristol and even establishing a presence in London.
The kind of person who would do well at Edge, says Philip Mitchell, senior tax manager with Edge Tax, ‘is someone with the ability to learn, push their technical comfort zone, embrace new ideas, be creative and have a strong desire to look after clients’.
The firm has seven employees and Philip says that Edge Tax gives them ‘access to training and development far in excess of what some of the team have experienced in their past careers’.
For example, he says ‘we attend professional training courses and frequently hold conferences with counsel on specific and general issues. Internally, we hold regular technical meetings and thinktanks. We also present to a number of our intermediary base on technical issues that may affect them or their clients. We have structured a training programme for our trainee CTA to include professional courses as well as internal training and exposure to real client issues’.
Great people
The greatest thing about Edge is the people we get to work with, says Anton. He describes the firm’s client base as ‘fantastic with a number of high-profile, well-known entrepreneurs, as well as big four type clients’. Furthermore, the testimonials the firm receives from clients make everyone realise the value and excellence of the work they do.
Hu Kabir of Brewer Morris says that with constantly changing tax legislation and with the upcoming 50% tax rate, more high net worth clients are turning to the likes of Edge Tax Consultancy to provide them with a high quality and bespoke advisory service.
If you are interested in working for Edge Tax, contact Hu on 020 7415 2800.
