We were the outright winners of the Ai Tax Award for Best Celebrity Tax Advisor 2016. This followed submission of what we did for some of our clients. We reproduce below the editorial we were given in the awards publication.
Thomas Harris Chartered Accountants, based in Wimbledon London UK, is a small niche practice operating in the entertainment field.
We are delighted to have received the award for Best Celebrity Tax Advisor 2016 as it has commemorated many years of hard work in this field putting our clients’ requirements first.
Founded by our senior partner, who when following his a passion for playing blues guitar found he was attracting clients in the music scene. Expanding this to cover then the broad range of entertainment the firm now acts for over 400 clients covering other disciplines as well. This ranges from small businesses to well-known celebrities. We do not pick and choose on the basic of success. It’s all about the rapport between you and us. An unknown music tribute act recently came to us with little or no funds and were being chased by HM Revenue and Customs for the last six years tax returns. Our approach resulted in a ‘no profit no loss’ agreement for those years. That meant no tax, no penalties and no interest was payable at all for that client. They were over the moon. But, learnt that they had to do things properly from now on.
For the more successful clients we have taken the approach never to take them into what are called ‘aggressive tax schemes’. In fact we have positively discouraged them if they had been approached by other advisors. Chris says ‘they were essentially dressed up tax deferral schemes, mainly making large fees for the advisors. That does not fit in with our philosophy of helping clients’
You need to differentiate these shams from the positive tax incentive schemes which in fact are championed by the UK government. These are things like the Enterprise Investment Scheme and the film tax credit scheme, which we have been extensively involved in with film financing and getting tax refunds. These enable up to 50% tax relief on the initial investment and up to 25% tax back on film expenditure. These are encouraged by the UK government providing work and employment in the country.
We take advantage of all available tax minimisation and reliefs that are allowed keeping clients taxes to a minimum. This is a necessary action in the complex tax laws that are faced by those in business. Their charitable giving is their own affair.