One minute with ... Alex Henderson

How did you end up in tax?

I can’t claim to have grown up wanting to be a tax accountant but when I started out in accountancy I deliberately chose a route that allowed me to do tax with a full range of auditing accounting. I found tax the most interesting part of the work because it touched absolutely everything.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?

I do remember my first tax partner telling me that attention to detail was the hallmark of the successful tax practitioner. Another good piece of advice is always to push on open doors. That’s something that’s very important in tax actually – you can over-engineer in tax but it’s better to go with the commercial flow.

Where do you stand on the GAAR proposals?

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