JOHN T NEWTH FCA, FIIT, FTII, ATT reminisces about a long tax career on his retirement as deputy editor.
IN 1955 I had just taken the old Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales intermediate examination and returned to my firm, Crew Turnbull and Co of Luton, to find that our tax manager had been taken seriously ill. So began a long career in taxation.
JOHN T NEWTH FCA, FIIT, FTII, ATT reminisces about a long tax career on his retirement as deputy editor.
IN 1955 I had just taken the old Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales intermediate examination and returned to my firm, Crew Turnbull and Co of Luton, to find that our tax manager had been taken seriously ill. So began a long career in taxation.
At the age of 18 I was plunged into all the facets of pre-1965 tax work: checking Schedule D assessments, agreeing accounts, preparing business tax computations and, unknown to current professionals, making Schedule A maintenance claims for private householders and reclaiming double taxation relief on South African dividends.
The workload was enormous, but it was an invaluable baptism into a specialism I should never have left. Crew Turnbull eventually became part of Cassleton Elliott and Co, then Josolyne Miles and eventually Ernst & Young. One of my first jobs, the solicitors, Machins, still prospers and I wonder if the old firm continues to act for them.
It is a sad postscript that a good friend who completed articles and ICAEW examinations alongside me and with whom I played many a memorable game of tennis was sent down for tax fraud by Judge Vick at Maidstone Crown Court many years later. Arnold Russell Vick had been my head of house at public school. School prefects never change!
After National Service and then marriage, I spent some years as a general practitioner, firstly with Mazars Neville Russell, for whom I was the first out-of-London partner and then my own Colchester practice, which still survives as Griffin Chapman and Co.
The Egham practice of Neville Russell was not viable, but the senior partners were not keen to be informed of that fact. Having been admitted as a partner at the age of 28 I left and Neville Russell then sold the practice to a chartered accountant who subsequently spent four years at 'Her Majesty's Pleasure' after raiding his clients' bank accounts. I suspect that he had paid too much for the practice.
Tax was never far away, and during my Colchester years I first gained an interest in tax investigations. A seaside landlady had been investigated unjustly by a keen new Inspector who had just transferred from Customs and Excise. The case engendered a good deal of stress, hostility and the spending of money, but the Revenue 'caved in' after we had intimated our clear intention to go to the General Commissioners. A valuable lesson was learnt.
Another interest was estate duty planning. The Government had announced the date when capital transfer tax would be introduced, and just before the banks closed on 26 March 1974 I paid in a sizeable premium on a life policy taken out by a farmer in favour of his wife. When he fell off the Edinburgh Castle liner on the way back from South Africa a year or so later, my hard work and persuasion was doubly rewarded, despite the human tragedy involved.
Tax continued to beckon, though, and I was increasingly dissatisfied with having to supervise the later stages of accounts preparation and positively hated auditing.
On the back of a stint of tax lecturing to students, I took the fellowship examination of The Chartered Institute of Taxation at the Old Alexandra Palace in 1972, along with 25 others. Together with Maurice Dawes, well-known to South Coast readers, I was one of the seven successful examinees. Those who had laughed at me when I joined The Chartered Institute of Taxation in 1959 now have to acknowledge the standing of that professional body!
Eventually, my firm was taken over and I spent four years in financial services advising clients on their investments for a firm of chartered accountants. There was still a tax element though, but I was glad to depart before excessive regulation 'hit'.
It was not until 1986 that I 'came home' to another full-time post in the tax world. Two-and-a-half years as a tax book editor with Tolley Publishing was an invaluable grounding for what lay ahead.
Eventually I joined Taxation magazine in November 1988, and so began an association with a closely-knit team of editorial staff on the magazine which has lasted over fifteen years. In fact, I had written my first article for Taxation in 1965, and had also written for both the Accountant and Accountancy at around that time. However, professional writing had been submerged under the pressure of business and family life.
One cannot be a specialist on Taxation magazine. Every tax, duty and impost and all its technical quirks have to be confronted from time to time. I have written literally hundreds of articles on diverse subjects, including perhaps 150/200 tax case summaries over the years. Ideas have spawned two new books, the editorship of a newsletter and a looseleaf manual on investigations. For a time I editored a newsletter also on that subject. Along the way I have been accepted into the Institute of Indirect Taxation and Association of Taxation Technicians.
Changes in the taxation system, administration, relationships with the Revenue, and in particular the size of the Finance Acts have been immense during my 47 years in the taxation world. Probably the biggest changes took place in 1965 when capital gains tax was introduced, 1972 when VAT began and 1996 when self assessment came on board.
In 1996 I had to make a decision – either to confront self assessment and conquer it, or retire early. In the event I have built up a library of over 1,500 press cuttings and articles on the subject, condensed into about eight box files. Another confrontation had taken place in the 1980s with the new electronic age.
Retirement? What's that? I may be leaving full-time employment with Butterworths Tolley on 5 January 2002 but, health permitting, I will continue to contribute to the magazine. I may not aspire to the heights of Gordon Newman, who as 'CGN' was still answering Readers' Forum queries at 85, but I intend to keep the brain cells alive.
