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Taxation Awards 2010

24th May 2010
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Thursday 20 May saw me decked out in my finery heading for London's Park Lane Hilton to attend the Taxation awards ceremony. There were more attendees than ever before, and I expected the room to be a real crush, but in the event moving between tables wasn't too difficult.

The evening started with a champagne reception in the upstairs room. I strolled in feeling a little nervous - it's the first time I had been out in public since losing my hair - and a wig just wasn't me, so proud to be bald I joined the throng. I caught up with a number of old friends, but John Whiting and I sadly used up most of the circulating time discussin possibilities for the June Budget. John's views on the NIC increases (or Labour's jobs tax as the Government has called it) were fascinating - and very much in line with my own views (which are that most of the NIC rises will happen, but will be cushioned by other changes - for employers an increase in the threshold, and for employees by a personal allowance increase). We also chatted about the possibility of changing CGT mid year - possible but implausible, we agreed.

Dinner was excellent (although sadly my sense of taste disappeared some weeks ago and probably won't be back for months) followed by time to circulate. I managed to catch up with a few more tax people, including Dave Hartnett, with whom I have shared a speaker's platform on a number of occasions. Then it was take your seats for the awards. Hugh Dennis was to present the awards, and started with a short comedy routine - ending with a great one liner - "I have to get on - due to a cock up by my tax adviser I have to be out of the country by midnight!".

The awards thenselves were well applauded and Hugh Dennis was warm in his delivery of the nominations, making the evening an enjoyable affair. Worth mentioning a couple of individual awards - Mike Thexton was named Tax writer of the year - much deserved for his excellent articles on VAT in a wide range of publications, and the award for Tax personality of the year was amended to "Tax personality of the decade", the award being presented to Alison Lovejoy who has looked after Tax Journal for many years, and was a very deserving (and surprised)winner. The full list of winners can be found here.

Most guests then headed upstairs for the charity casino in aid of TaxAid or the dancefloor, but after chatting to one or two more old friends it was off to my carriage and a long drive back to Gloucestershire, courtesy of my hubby. An excellent night!

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By Mike Truman
26th May 2010 11:14

Wonderful to see you

It was a wonderful surprise to see you, looking fantastic and on good form as ever.

My problem as chair of the judging panel is that, by the end of the evening, four-fifths of the audience blame me because they didn't win, and the one-fifth that did are too busy celebrating to care!

My favourite line of Hugh Dennis's was that he had to fill in a P11D because his car was a diesel...

Mike Truman

Editor, Taxation magazine

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