Rebecca Johnson

I am passionate about helping growth to mid-sized businesses get tax right!

I want to help Directors to have visibility of potential tax risks across the tax landscape, in order to ensure that they can have meaningful discussions and make effective decisions. 

HMRC published a paper in August 2019, which highlights their increased focus on encouraging mid-sized companies to consider tax proactively.

High growth scale ups can develop tax risks without realising they are there, only to find themselves at the sharp end of a very expensive tax issue some years down the line.

HMRC combined their corporation tax and indirect tax governance in 2005 by merging the Inland Revenue with Customs & Excise; large businesses were obliged to consider all taxes within the SAO regime in 2009; but SME have had no similar total tax governance requirements as yet. The 2019 Brydon Report on Audit Effectiveness may change this, via increased auditor expectation of risk assessments.

I can help either

• by providing a proactive risk management service tailored to your needs to reduce the risk of a toxic shock to your business on an ongoing basis, or
• I can help on an adhoc proactive or reactive basis to assist with specific issues.

I have over 30 years of experience, specialising in total tax management since 2002, on an in-house basis within regulated large groups. I left my senior in-house role to allow more entities to benefit from my experience and pro-active tax management approach.

My unique skill set covers not just direct and indirect taxes, but also risk and internal audit, as well as a deep understanding of operational cultures and systems, which gives me a commercial understanding for tax projects and risk reviews. 

I have a proven track record of building strong direct relationships with HMRC through clear balanced communications and a pro-active approach as is evidenced in the testimonials on my Home Page www.spursupportservices.co.uk .

My experience covers most aspects of the tax environment, from corporate tax, capital allowance analysis of multi-million pound capital programmes, R&D analysis, capital gains tax, VAT and IPT technical negotiations, technical responses to government consultations, enquiry responses and voluntary disclosures which have reached all the way up to ADR.

Having worked within multi-national groups I am also well versed in setting up, operating and monitoring expat and short term business visitor arrangements, dealing with the tax aspects of overseas NED's, double taxation, looking into the cross border CT and VAT risks and more recently considering DAC6 issues.

I've assisted with tax due dilligence, both from the buyer and seller perspective and can offer assistance in this area. However, large transaction tax advisory is beyond the scope of my risk profile as my PPI insurance is only £1m.

I've also been an active member of Industry Direct and Indirect Tax groups (Water Industry), was a key player in forecasting the tax effects of potential tax and reporting changes on the cashflow, current and deferred direct tax basis and written papers on Environmental Taxes to aid discussions with industry group members.

If you are interested in finding out more, please don't hesitate to contact me via my website