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When we moved last year’s Taxation Awards ceremony online it never occurred to us that we would not be able to hold a live event in 2021.
We did briefly consider whether we could organise a face-to-face event this autumn, but we soon ruled that out. Even if such events were permitted by then we couldn’t realistically ask people to commit to booking in advance.
We did not want to cancel the awards completely – especially in their 21st anniversary year – but we were very mindful of the fact that businesses would not want to be spending time and effort preparing entry nominations at a time when they would want to be concentrating on their plans for the post-Covid world. So we compromised with a limited online event with just three individual awards: rising star; outstanding contribution to tax in 2020-21; and lifetime achievement.
A video announcing the results was posted on YouTube at 4pm on 13 May (https://tinyurl.com/TaxationAwards21).
Let’s ‘Tolley’ it
The event was launched by Jon Scriven, director of tax markets for Tolley. He reflected on the impact that the past year had had on the business and in particular the challenges of ensuring that people working from home have access to all of the tax information they need. He made a nice reference to our dearly missed former colleague Chris Jones – for many years the life and soul of the Taxation Awards – when he spoke of how the firm had used technology to bring to life Chris’s vision of being able ‘to Tolley’ something (https://tolley.ai/tolley-this/install-tl/): the tax equivalent of ‘to Google’ something.
Rising star award
John then announced the first of our winners. This was Sofia Thomas, who is Taxation’s rising star for 2021. Sofia has established herself very quickly as somebody to watch out for in our profession. She has already set up her own firm, co-authored an important book on tax and family breakdown, and has lectured both on the CPD circuit and at a major university. She counts among her proudest achievements the publication of an article supported by the charity Surviving Economic Abuse discussing how tax advisers and accountants are often some of the first people who might be able to spot the signs of economic abuse. I am sure that we will see and hear much more of Sofia in the years to come.
Outstanding contribution award
Jon then introduced our guest speaker – CIOT president Peter Rayney – himself a multiple winner at previous Taxation Awards. Peter spoke with characteristic insight about the effect that the pandemic has had on our profession and gave us his thoughts on what its long-term effects might be. His optimism was encouraging, and I do share his view that we will come out of the crisis in a stronger position than we could ever have imagined a year ago.
He then announced the winner of the outstanding contribution award. This is decided by popular vote by members of the profession, and it was pleasing that many people took the time to register a vote for one of the five candidates:
- Richard Asquith, VP indirect tax, Avalara, Brighton
- Rebecca Bennyworth MBE FCA, principal at Rebecca Benneyworth and Co, Chartered Accountants
- Mark Groom, partner, Deloitte
- Rebecca Seeley Harris LLB (Hons) LLM MSc, legal director employment status and IR35 expert
- John Kinsella, director, Watson Buckle Ltd Chartered Accountants
In a closely fought contest the recipient of the award was Mark Groom, who has done a huge amount of invaluable work, both in public and behind the scenes, across the whole gamut of employment taxes and in particularly in the never-ending saga of IR35.
Lifetime achievement award
Finally, I had the pleasure of introducing the last award – for lifetime achievement. Over the years we have acknowledged the work of many of the great and good in tax and this year’s recipient, Paul Aplin, fully deserves his place among these giants of our profession.
I was pleased to be able to pay a personal tribute to the wise counsel that Paul had offered me over the years but also to acknowledge the really important way that Paul has used his relationship with HMRC and government to give totally honest feedback on so many issues concerning tax technology and the digital agenda.
He is, in the best sense of the word, a critical friend and his sane voice of moderation has enabled him to be truly influential in so many important areas of tax policy and practice.
Paul gave a gracious response, which was typically modest but full of good humour. It really was a pity that he could not receive the award in front of a room full of his peers. A standing ovation would have been guaranteed.
So that marks another year of the awards. They may have been smaller in scale than in previous years, but the winners are no less worthy of our congratulations and admiration. Jon, in his closing remarks, looked forward to the live event which we are planning for 2022. God willing it will take place, allowing all of us to be able to get together to celebrate the many achievements of our profession. If nothing else it will give me an excuse to buy a new waistcoat!
