Biography:

Dean Wootten has been involved in tax training for many years and lectures on a wide variety of tax matters. Dean started his career as a Chartered Accountant, qualifying with Grant Thornton in 1988. Dean then spent two years overseas with KPMG before returning to a medium sized provincial firm in Sussex. Shortly after returning to the UK Dean qualified as an Associate of the Institute of Taxation in 1991.

Whilst in practice Dean gained valuable experience including five years at partner level. The experience gained enables Dean to focus his lecturing on the practical aspects of the issues presented.

Together with Chris Jones, Dean was a founder director of Online Tutors Limited, a company specialising in providing online CPD training. The company is responsible for the tax and accounting CPD update service at www.tolleyseminars.com, the tax learning product Tolley's Tax Tutor and the quarterly Tolley's VAT Update.

Dean is also the senior lecturer on the CTA VAT route at Tolley's and the EU VAT paper on the ADIT international tax exams.

Dean is a regular contributor to Taxation magazine where his articles have got a reputation for providing clear practical advice.

In 2014 Dean worked with the Bahamian Government in preparation for the introduction of VAT in the Bahamas from 1 January 2015

Trading as Wootten Consultants, Dean and Mike Thexton provide VAT consultancy advice to practitioners throughout the UK. Dean and Mike are uniquely placed to provide practical VAT advice to practitioners and clients in a very clear manner.

Biography:

Ximena draws from prior experience in public law and has a successful tax advisory and litigation practice representing clients in Judicial Review, High Court claims and substantive tax appeals in the Tribunals and beyond.

In the span of her 18-year career, she has represented and appeared on behalf of taxpayers in complex Judicial Review proceedings and group appeal litigation for 350+ appellants with tax at stake of several £100m.  She is uniquely familiar with procedure, FTT rules, costs and alternative dispute resolution strategy.

Ximena has published numerous articles, case reports, commentaries and text books on tax legislation and caselaw.

Her clients include a variety of media personalities, HNW individuals, OMBs and multinational corporates.

Biography:

Caroline leads the Employment Tax Team in London and has over 25 years’ experience specialising in all aspects of employment taxes. Her clients range from entrepreneurial fast growing businesses to international household names as well as charities and not for profit organisations.

Her focus is across all aspects of employment taxes in particular the off-payroll working rules (IR35), employment status for tax, termination/settlement payments, employment tax implications of agile working arrangements, management team advice on transactions, employee benefit reviews, PAYE/NIC compliance and reporting etc.

Biography:

Ibrahim is a senior associate within the International Tax and Transfer Pricing practice at Forvis Mazars LLP UK where he is specialised in providing international tax and transfer pricing services to clients across multiple industries. He is a Nigerian qualified attorney with extensive experience of African tax regimes having practiced with both Big 4 and Chambers ranked law firms in Nigeria and South Africa.

Biography:

Julian is a barrister at Exchequer Chambers, part of The Barrister Group (www.exchequerchambers.com). He was called to the Bar in 1995 and he has been a partner with major City and West End solicitors’ practices. Julian specialises in disputes that arise from any tax or tax-related matter. His practice covers all areas of tax, including corporate, international, employment, private client, VAT, SDLT, Stamp Taxes, and customs and excise duty; together with areas concerning professional negligence and judicial review. He acts as an advocate and in an advisory capacity and has appeared both on his own and as part of a team in a wide variety of cases in the First-tier Tribunal, Upper Tribunal, High Court and Court of Appeal (some of which have been live streamed). He represents taxpayers and HMRC. He has a Ph.D in tax (awarded by the University of London); and he has written and lectured extensively on tax issues. For further information please see taxbarrister.com. He also contributes to Tolley's "A Practical Guide to Tax Disputes".

Biography:

Liz is a partner in our Global Employer Services practice and leads Deloitte’s incentives and reward legal team. She is a solicitor with 20 years experience advising on all aspects of incentives and reward.

Liz advises on the full breadth of services relating to share plans, including the design of new plans, implementing plans and their day to day operation. She has substantial experience advising on all related incentives matters and the impact of corporate transactions on share plans. Liz has deep technical knowledge on the legal and tax aspects of incentives.

Liz’s clients include major listed companies and financial services clients. She works closely with heads of reward, heads of tax, company secretaries and share plan teams as well as remuneration committee members. She also contributes to Tolley's Tax Planning.

Biography:

Robert qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1979 with Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co and decided to specialise in tax. Late in 1980 he left to join Financial Training in Newcastle teaching tax at all levels plus a few other topics for good measure.

After a few years he decided to go back into the profession firstly as a Senior Tax Manager with EY and later as a Group Tax Manager with Pannell Kerr Forster. Both firms made good use of Robert’s outstanding lecturing ability involving him in both local and national in-house training and client seminars.

In 1992 Robert set up on his own; providing accounting services and tax advice to local professionals, individuals and companies. It was not long before his lecturing skills were called upon again for both exam based training and CPD lectures. By 2000 Robert was in such demand as a freelancer he had to fully focus on lecturing and could take with him the invaluable experience of being in practice.

Until it was discontinued in 2006 Robert ran the entire CTA residential course at Reed College enjoying much success and several prizewinners: made more rewarding because most students were from small regional firms. Robert continues to teach students at various levels for different tax examination bodies both in the UK and in Europe as well as writing and delivering CPD lectures in the UK.

Biography:

I'm an international tax and transfer pricing specialist, working with a wide range of clients across all aspects of international corporate taxes.

I joined Smith & Williamson as a graduate, and have experience ranging from fast growth FinTech companies, through to well established, global groups. I'm an active member within the Nexia International network, assisting multinationals with cross-border structuring, transactions, financing and transfer pricing.

Biography:

Philip is an experienced Transfer Pricing director. He is a subject matter expert with experience in both industry and advisory. Having worked in financial services and the technology sector, he prides himself on providing pragmatic advice which is both easy to implement and provides suitable substantiation. He has experience advising clients across multiple sectors and has recently worked with a government to formulate transfer pricing policy. He has worked with multiple tax jurisdictions worldwide.

Biography:

John is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor, who trained with one of EY’s predecessor firms. That training contract was followed by a long career at EY, specialising in integrated US/UK income, capital, and estate tax planning.

Part of that practice at EY involved advising international professional partnerships conducting business in the UK. Expertise in this specialist area led to John being recruited to go ‘in-house’ with one of the leading US law firms and spending eight years as Regional Tax Director (EMEA) for White & Case. This was followed by a return to public practice, first with Frank Hirth and latterly with Blick Rothenberg.

John is a member of both HMRC’s Expat Tax Forum and HMRC’s Expat/NIC Strategy Group. He has lectured extensively on US tax topics. His publishing credits include being a member of the writing team on “A Guide to the UK/US Tax Treaty” (LexisNexis 2003), and a past contributor to the ‘Working in the UK’ and ‘Working Overseas’ sections of Tolley’s Tax Planning.  John has also had articles published in “Tax Planning International Review”, “Tax Management International Journal” and “The BNA Daily Tax Report”.

Outside work, John’s interests include photography, fly fishing, playing tournament bridge and learning to play the piano.

Biography:

David Dorgan has established himself as one of the leading lawyers in Jersey combining strengths in private client and trusts, corporate and finance work.

He has a significant specialism in private and commercial trusts and foundations, focusing on providing technical advice on their establishment and on-going administration which is tailored for the practical and commercial requirements of clients. He has extensive experience of drafting bespoke and complex trust instruments and foundation regulations for high and ultra-high net worth individuals and families, preparing bespoke will trusts and providing documentation for SPV, philanthropy, charitable and non-charitable purposes.

David also has considerable experience in corporate and finance matters, in particular transactions involving trustees refinancing or selling and/or purchasing trust fund property and/or high net worth individuals or families entering into entrepreneurial ventures. He has also provided opinions to foreign courts, foreign revenue authorities and institutional lenders on complex issues relating to trust and corporate issues.

David is ranked by Chambers and Partners and Legal500 saying that he “is particularly timely in the delivery of his services, and has a keen technical and business acumen, ensuring advice is appropriate and cost-effective.” and that “He has a pragmatic and commercial approach on difficult matters and is very good at understanding the issues and coming up with reasonable solutions…His drafting is excellent and he can also liaise with other advisers and third parties with a good commercial view for the client.”

David graduated with a Master of Laws degree and qualified as a Jersey Solicitor in 2006, as a Jersey Advocate in 2008 and as a Jersey Notary Public in 2011. He is a member of the Jersey Finance Working Groups for Trusts, Foundations and Charities, is a full member of STEP and holds the Islamic Finance Qualification from CISI.

Biography:

After being called to the Bar of England and Wales (Lincoln’s Inn, 2011), Jivaan began his career in the Tax and Legal Services team of a Big4 accounting firm in the Caribbean, where he managed the tax and commercial disputes portfolio.

He retrained and qualified as a solicitor into the corporate tax team of Linklaters LLP (London). His tax practice primarily entails advising on potentially contentious legal issues (tax and commercial) in the context of cross-border M&A, corporate reorganisations and finance transactions, as well as assisting clients in resolving tax disputes with tax authorities, including representation before the relevant tribunals and courts.

Jivaan regularly advises clients in a range of sectors, spanning private equity and financial sponsors, financial institutions, fintech, consumer goods, energy and sports. Jivaan has a fervent interest in legislative policy development in developing countries, especially as it relates to international taxation and commercial law.

Current and past projects in this respect include:

(i) advising the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on the drafting of three model Bills relating to company, insolvency and partnership laws;

(ii) advising a state on its tax reforms to comply with OECD requirements to facilitate removal from the grey list; and

(iii) developing and delivery tax training to the tax authority of a state’s tax authority on international tax law issues, including double tax treaties and transfer pricing. Jivaan is a member of Linklaters’ Latin America Group and is Head of the Linklaters Caribbean Desk. Outside of practice, Jivaan is a visiting lecturer at King’s College London on the International Tax Law LLM, where he lectures on the International Tax Law and the EU Tax Law modules and supervises dissertations related to these topics.

Biography:

Claire is a partner specialising in incentives. She advises clients on all forms of management and employee incentive arrangements, including option plans and other share-based incentives, cash plans and UK tax-favoured plans. She works with clients from start-ups to listed multinationals in a variety of sectors, in particular technology, energy and infrastructure and life sciences.

During her career, as well as law Claire has worked in executive remuneration consulting and in-house reward which gives her a 360 view of incentives, enabling her to partner with her clients to find the right solutions for their businesses.

Biography:

Ros is a HR and payroll industry professional with over 30 years’ experience. Having fellow status of the CIPP, HEA and the CMI, as well as gaining individual chartered status with the CMI, she has proven experience within the strategic HR and payroll community, and from 2014 was elected to, and served as, a non-executive director on the CIPP board for almost 6 years, helping shape the future of the institute. Ros is also a member of the Reward 300 2021 as a ‘Knowledge and Professional Services Leader’.

Industry experience includes 12 years working in the HR and Payroll outsourcing industry, having previously worked for Ceridian, LogicaCMG, and NorthgateArinso in implementation, quality, consultancy, and strategic management roles. Additionally, Ros has extensive experience working as a consultant for her own organisation, assisting in-house payroll departments in improving processes and performance, implementing new HR, payroll, and expense systems, and merging payroll services into HR shared service centres. Ros also provides regular editing support and topical articles for some well-known industry publications.

Working with the CIPP for the last 19 years, Ros also tutors the Foundation Degree in Payroll Management, and the MSc in Payroll Management, and is a registered Payroll Assurance Scheme (PAS) assessor. An additional part of Ros’ role with the CIPP has included writing and developing material for the institute’s qualifications. Ros holds a high profile within the HR and payroll industry, becoming a finalist in the Payroll World Awards 2004, being awarded the IPP Payroll Employee of the Year award in 2007, and named in the Reward Strategy Reward 300 for the last 3 years, including being shortlisted for an individual award in 2020.

Biography:

Omar is working at the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) – a global Islamic finance standard setter, as its Secretary General. Previously he was Partner – Assurance & Head of Islamic Finance (Pakistan & Afghanistan) at Ernst & Young Ford Rhodes Sidat Hyder - A member firm of Ernst & Young. He is a Fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP).

At AAOIFI, he is responsible primarily for leading the process of development of accounting, auditing, governance and ethics standards for the global Islamic finance industry, besides managing the overall affairs of the institution as the organization’s head.

Omar’s key areas of expertise include assurance and advisory services to Islamic financial institutions, including Islamic accounting advisory, audits, Shari’ah Audits, corporate finance advisory, structuring of Shari’ah compliant transactions, accountancy and financial reporting, Islamic finance training, financial modelling, risk management & development and review of manuals and systems.

His published books include:

1. Managing Finances - A Shariah Compliant Way;
2. Islamic Microfinance Bank: Working Model (in Urdu);
3. IFRS and Shari'ah based reporting: a conceptual study;
4. Textbook on Islamic finance and capital markets (for the Institute of Capital Markets, SECP – Pakistan);
5. AAOIFI’s *** program study texts (in the capacity of chief editor and reviewer) comprising 4 volumes on (i) Accounting and Financial Reporting; (ii) Shari'ah Standards and Shari'ah Governance; (iii) Audit, Assurance and Ethics; and (iv) Business and regulatory environment.

Omar is a member (ex-chairman) of ICAP's committee responsible for the development of Islamic financial accounting standards for Pakistan and also a member of the Insurance Committee leading the accounting regulations development for Takaful. He was a member of Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Shari’ah Board and part of the committee for revision of Takaful Rules, besides being part of several committees and task forces of the State Bank of Pakistan. He was also an advisor to Saudi Organization for Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA) on Shari’ah issues concerning IFRS adoption.

He has contributed several articles in various newspapers and journals, and papers in conferences and is also a regular trainer and speaker on various forums on topics related to Islamic finance including forums like the State Bank of Pakistan, universities and professional bodies.

Biography:

David Everett, is the head of the Pensions Research team at LCP. One of his key roles is to analyse and communicate regulatory and professional developments to audiences both within and outside LCP.

David has built up many years of experience in the occupational pensions regulatory field covering a broad spectrum including government policy and legislation, particularly that emanating from the Department for Work and Pensions, the Pensions Regulator, the Pension Protection Fund and other compensation schemes, the Pensions Ombudsman and the Courts and the technical and ethical regulation of actuaries through the Financial Reporting Council and the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries respectively.

He also assists the ACA in responding to government consultations.

He's the editor of LCP's weekly Pensions Bulletin and undertakes other technical writing for the firm, as well as contributing to TolleyGuidance Employment taxes for the Pensions module.

Biography:

Andy advises on all aspects of employment law, with particular expertise in advising companies on large scale workforce issues such as changing the terms of their pension arrangements for staff, reorganisations, changes to terms and conditions and TUPE transfers/outsourcing arrangements. He also has substantial experience of Tribunal work and negotiating severance packages with (and for) senior executives, as well as dealing with other contentious issues such as breach of confidentiality, team moves and post-termination restrictions.

In addition, Andy regularly advises on the employment and pensions aspects of corporate transactions, such as sales and purchases of businesses, group restructuring exercises and funding investment projects. He also presents seminars and delivers tailored training sessions to clients, as well as writing for a variety of publications.

Biography:

Irfan  is a Tax Partner in the London Real Estate tax team at RSM Tax and Advisory Services LLP. He advises both Shariah compliant and conventional real estate investors and fund managers on all aspects of tax structuring of funds and UK and pan-European real estate transactions and strategies across commercial, retail, residential, logistics, hotels, and student accommodation properties.

Over the years he has led and advised on numerous high profile real estate transactions as well as acquisition of real estate related distressed loan portfolios and loan work out strategies for distressed debt funds.

Irfan contr0ibutes to Tolley's International Tax Planning.