Obituary: Bruce Wilson Sutherland CBE

Bruce Sutherland, who has died aged 98, was best known as an authority on unquoted share valuations and taxation, particularly capital taxes.

Bruce established himself as a leading authority on unquoted share valuations in the 1960s and on taxation, particularly the capital taxes, and in 1966, he set up Bruce Sutherland & Co, a specialist share valuation practice.

Bruce sat on various tax committees, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce which he then chaired in the mid-60s, as well as the CBI tax committee of which he became deputy chairman. For many years he was chairman of the Institute of Directors tax committee. 

In the early 1970s, Bruce became an adviser to the board of Inland Revenue. Over the years he was involved in many working groups dealing with anti-avoidance, development land tax, practical problems Customs were likely to encounter on the introduction of VAT, and a charge on private use of fuel. When the deputy chairman of the board of Inland Revenue retired, he said Bruce had done more for our tax system than anyone he had known.

In late 1974, he was recruited by Margaret Thatcher, then a shadow Treasury minister, to advise her on the Labour government’s proposed capital transfer tax. He acted as an adviser to shadow and later chancellors of the exchequer and Treasury ministers on tax matters. In recognition of this he was appointed CBE in 1981. He was once described by Denis Thatcher as the only man who Maggie would dare not handbag!

In 2012 he received the Taxation lifetime achievement award. 

He was a born survivor. In his first choice of career, as an officer in the Indian army, when the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, Bruce was the only survivor in his Gurkha battalion (1st King George V’s Own Gurkha Rifles (the Malaun Regiment)) of the officers from the original group who went to Imphal in the autumn of 1943 from Razmak in Waziristan. Bruce was mentioned in despatches for distinguished services in Burma in 1945. 

In his few years of retirement, he enjoyed reading military history books and was a reluctant bridge player, having once beaten the world champions when asked to join a table without knowing that his opposition had just become the world champions.