Robert Maas: my life in tax

I left school at 16 and six months later signed five-year articles (the precursor of training contracts) to become a chartered accountant. In those five years I got great experience in virtually all aspects of accountancy with the marked exception of tax.

Except that is for maintenance claims a feature of the old style Schedule A taxation on homeowners which sadly (for me at least) was abolished in 1963 so would not feature in my final exams in November 1964. Someone in the office suggested that I take the then Institute of Taxation’s exams to give me a bit of practice in tax so I already had my ATII (as the CTA was then known) by the time I became a chartered accountant.

Being an ACA at 22 and having just missed National Service I had a weird idea of getting specialist...