One minute with Sean Drury, Head of Tax at Blick Rothenberg
What’s keeping you busy at work?
The world of tax never stops, and not just when you have a government in flux. We are now living with the reality of the FIG regime, and we’re spending lots of time getting to grips with disclosing foreign assets. We have several condocs in process, including a significant one on distributions, and we’re reviewing the implications of the BlueCrest Supreme Court judgment ([2026] UKSC 18). Obviously, being newish in the role as Head of Tax at Blick Rothenberg is also keeping me very busy.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
Don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember that you can only do what you can do. Professional services firms really only have their people to define their brand. Making sure they do what they want to do drives creativity and discretionary effort, so you’d best listen to them.
Are there any new trends you’re seeing in tax?
Like all my colleagues in the tax world, I think the impact of AI is huge but we are only at the start of this industrial revolution, so it is not easy to predict where it ends. What is clear is that human judgement in tax is becoming even more important. How we continue to attract the right talent, in the right numbers, to ensure we have the future leaders our tax profession needs is an area I am grappling with.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
TMA 1970 needs a big overhaul. It’s not really fit for purpose anymore, and we’d be better off with a full, modern-looking rewrite in this space, rather than the continual tinkering that just makes our tax law ever more clunky.
Has a recent tax case caught your eye?
I’d be remiss not to say BlueCrest again. The implications are potentially wide-ranging, and we will need to wait and see whether we see a broad-based review of LLPs, with further focus from HMRC, especially around Condition C. That may come through further case law or more in-depth discussions around ‘significant influence’ under Condition B, on which LLPs have been relying for their members.
Finally, you might not know this about me but…
I was lucky to have the opportunity to spend a couple of years outside the tax world before I was lured back in by the opportunity at Blick Rothenberg. Besides spending valuable time with my wife and four daughters, I devoted quite a lot of my time to the not-for-profit sector, whether in education, sport or certain charities, but specifically supporting Ukrainians displaced by the war. This included our family becoming guardians to Danylo, who is still with us – and is now studying accounting and finance at Southampton University!
One minute with Sean Drury, Head of Tax at Blick Rothenberg
What’s keeping you busy at work?
The world of tax never stops, and not just when you have a government in flux. We are now living with the reality of the FIG regime, and we’re spending lots of time getting to grips with disclosing foreign assets. We have several condocs in process, including a significant one on distributions, and we’re reviewing the implications of the BlueCrest Supreme Court judgment ([2026] UKSC 18). Obviously, being newish in the role as Head of Tax at Blick Rothenberg is also keeping me very busy.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your career?
Don’t sweat the small stuff, and remember that you can only do what you can do. Professional services firms really only have their people to define their brand. Making sure they do what they want to do drives creativity and discretionary effort, so you’d best listen to them.
Are there any new trends you’re seeing in tax?
Like all my colleagues in the tax world, I think the impact of AI is huge but we are only at the start of this industrial revolution, so it is not easy to predict where it ends. What is clear is that human judgement in tax is becoming even more important. How we continue to attract the right talent, in the right numbers, to ensure we have the future leaders our tax profession needs is an area I am grappling with.
If you could make one change to a tax law or practice, what would it be?
TMA 1970 needs a big overhaul. It’s not really fit for purpose anymore, and we’d be better off with a full, modern-looking rewrite in this space, rather than the continual tinkering that just makes our tax law ever more clunky.
Has a recent tax case caught your eye?
I’d be remiss not to say BlueCrest again. The implications are potentially wide-ranging, and we will need to wait and see whether we see a broad-based review of LLPs, with further focus from HMRC, especially around Condition C. That may come through further case law or more in-depth discussions around ‘significant influence’ under Condition B, on which LLPs have been relying for their members.
Finally, you might not know this about me but…
I was lucky to have the opportunity to spend a couple of years outside the tax world before I was lured back in by the opportunity at Blick Rothenberg. Besides spending valuable time with my wife and four daughters, I devoted quite a lot of my time to the not-for-profit sector, whether in education, sport or certain charities, but specifically supporting Ukrainians displaced by the war. This included our family becoming guardians to Danylo, who is still with us – and is now studying accounting and finance at Southampton University!
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