Zoom – speed networking

Last Thursday we had our second Zoom – speed networking - session of Caroline’s Club members.

Each member was asked to introduce themselves and give a client story – stories are 5 times more likely to be of interest and are 1,227% more likely to be remembered.

Deborah Lawal, a lawyer with GFOS started off by telling us a little about what she was learning at her MBA course. Interestingly, most of the really successful businesses now; Netflix, Zoom and Uber started during or soon after the recession. 

Deborah was recruited to GFOS by David Nield a professional recruiter with VGS. David told us that many recruitment agencies do not consider employees who may be going through a hard time, but these are just when people most need to find a job and are likely to give it everything they have got. Post lockdown there will be many more people desperate to find work – following the much-expected wave of redundancies in the Autumn. I am sure David will be super busy

Martin Territt, former EU ambassador to Ireland, has numerous clients across a wide range of business and personal issues – he spoke about a matter affecting the border between Bulgaria and Greece. His skill and experience are to find the right people to engage in the EU to make a difference. 

I said that his services should be engaged to thrash out the breaches of personal data protection in the automatic exchange of information.

I told a short client story about a case with which I am currently involved and have worked with both Alison Parry head at Intertrust in Guernsey for UHNW families and Ross Birkbeck a tax barrister at 15 Old Square tax chambers. The client came to me to set up a ‘Family Office Special Purpose Trustee’ to protect his business during his lifetime but also after his death, from family disputes and creditors.

Andrew MacKenna former Tax Inspector and head of compliance and offshore trusts told us that HMRC is now super aggressive, and some clients cannot stand it, preferring to pay the tax rather than continue with the dispute. 

Ross Birbeck made an interesting point that very often to get some resolution with HMRC the only way to resolve the dispute was to get in front of a Judge as quickly as possible. He  told us that he is involved with several investigations looking into whether a person is really non-UK domiciled or not – and he told us the extraordinary lengths HMRC will go into in their questions – such as where did they spend Christmas fifteen years ago!!!

Ross also asked Andrew whether the inspectors are told to be aggressive – no said Andrew, but they are tasked to bring in tax and penalties. 

Furthermore, Andrew said, all inspectors have a mind-set that the only reason why trusts are set up offshore is to avoid tax, which in my experience is not the case – asset protection is usually of more importance than tax avoidance.

Alison Parry spoke of a matter on her desk of a wealthy family which has run out of income to maintain its lifestyle and she is finding ways with her clients in how to resolve this.

I am sure that in the months to come it will not only be Alison’s clients who will be looking for cash to maintain their lifestyles. 

And lastly, we finished the session with a general discussion. I suppose what I found staggering was the phenomenal amount of personal data which is currently being held by Governments across the world – and not just on the rich, but on all of us. The Australian Government for example knows of every payment which enters or leaves its country. 

At the moment each country works on its own, but it is only a matter of time before they will work together and at this stage there will be nowhere to hide, no crack to fall into and no shadow into which our clients can slip. 

I hope this gives you a flavour of what to expect on our Zoom – speed networking session. The next one is on Thursday 22nd October – I look forward to seeing you there.

If you would like to join our group, simply register and sign up to Caroline’s Club by clicking here.