Alex Baulf, Senior Director, Global Indirect Tax, Avalara
Alex leads on global indirect tax at Avalara, leading on engagement with policy and business leaders to develop a tax and compliance environment that will streamline and accelerate commerce for the overall growth of the economy. Alex specialisms include analysing changing VAT requirements and advising on impact assessment. 

Ishvinder Bedi, Indirect Tax Director, BDO
Ishvinder is a Director in BDO’s Indirect tax team and has over 14 years of experience advising clients in a range of industries. Ishvinder now focuses on advising clients within Tech and Media to help manage indirect tax risks and compliance requirements. Ishvinder also regularly helps clients to understand and improve on their tax controls and processes in order to mitigate risk.

Ian Broadhurst, Deputy Director of Indirect Tax Policy, HMRC
Ian started his career with HMRC (and its predecessor department HM Customs & Excise) over 30 years ago and has worked in a number of roles, mostly in VAT but also other indirect taxes. For the last 20 years, he has been working on VAT policy, including a three-year secondment to HM Treasury (2008-2011). He has broad experience across a range of VAT policy areas, including extensive experience in international forums. Ian is currently a Deputy Director in Indirect Tax Directorate in HMRC, responsible for policy on VAT Reliefs, Deductions and Financial Services.

Ruth Corkin, Indirect Tax Principal, Hillier Hopkins
Ruth has been involved with VAT for over 30 years. She started her VAT career as a Customs and Excise Officer in Essex and then moved into consultancy with a variety of well-known accountancy firms. She is well known in the VAT world and is the proud author of many articles and technical works. Ruth is currently the Technical Chair of the VAT Practitioners Group, and is also a member of the ICAEW Tax Faculty VAT and Duties Committee and its Duties Subcommittee. Ruth was previously seconded part-time to the Office of Tax Simplification, where she worked on the VAT Review Project. 

Liam Dushynsky, Indirect Tax Partner, PKF Francis Clark
Liam specialises in VAT, Customs Duty and other indirect tax matters and has been advising in this area since 2005. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and a member of the Chartered Institute of Tax. Liam sits on ICAEW’s VAT and Duties Committee and chairs its Duties Subcommittee. He advises businesses of all sizes from family businesses to FTSE 100 companies.

Stephen Dale, Chair, VAT and Duties Committee, ICAEW
Stephen has worked in French taxation for some thirty years, having previously worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the UK and in France. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Accountants’ Institute in England and Wales. Stephen worked for PwC and its predecessor firms from 1976 until retirement from PwC in September 2017. Stephen now works for Roosevelt Expertise – chartered accountants in Paris.

Stephen is a member (and former Chairman) of Accountancy Europe’s Tax Policy Group. Stephen was re-appointed Chairman of the International VAT Association in 2021 and is chair of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales VAT and Duties Committee. He was appointed to the EU Commission’s VAT Forum in 2012 and reappointed to the VAT Expert Group in 2022 – and worked on policy papers on VAT Groups, Establishments and most recently on the VAT Definitive regime and the VAT in the Digital Age project.

Professor Rita de la Feria, Chair of Tax Law, University of Leeds
Rita de la Feria is Professor of Tax Law at the University of Leeds, and an International Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation. She received her law degree from the University of Lisbon (1999), and did her PhD at the University of Dublin, Trinity College (2006), after a brief career in practice, working in the Lisbon and Dublin offices of Arthur Andersen. Professor de la Feria's research focus is primarily on tax law and policy – particularly on the intersection between tax law and EU constitutional law, public economics, criminology and criminal justice, and more recently political science – and she has published widely on these areas, including four books, and over 60 journal articles and book chapters, including in the Common Market Law Review, the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, the European Law Review, and the Journal of Law and Society. She has been a visiting scholar at New York University, Law School, USA (2008), ATAX, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2009), and McGill University, Montreal, Canada (2019).

Russell Gammon, Chief Solutions Officer, Tax Systems
Russell is Tax Systems’ Chief Solutions Officer. He has 15 years’ experience in Tax Technology, having worked for two of the Big Four before joining Tax Systems. In his role as CSO he is passionate about building products that improve users' experiences.

Jim Harra, First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive, HMRC
Jim began his career in the Inland Revenue as an Inspector of Taxes in 1984. In January 2009, he was appointed Director of Corporation Tax and VAT, responsible for optimising the design and delivery of these business taxes. Jim became Director of Personal Tax Customer Operations in March 2011, and Director Personal Tax Operations in October 2011. He was appointed Director General Business Tax on 16 April 2012. Jim took up the post as HMRC’s Second Permanent Secretary and Deputy Chief Executive on 1 January 2018. Jim was appointed as HMRC’s First Permanent Secretary and Chief Executive in October 2019. 

Anita Monteith, Head of Taxation Policy, ICAEW
Anita is ICAEW’s Head of Taxation Policy and has a particular interest in tax simplification and also how the UK tax system could be used to achieve Net Zero by 2050. She is closely involved with online filing developments in tax, including the government’s proposals to Make Tax Digital. In 2011 she was seconded to the government’s Treasury Select Committee to develop a set of principles for designing tax policy and is currently a member of the Tax Professionals Forum which reviews the government’s policy making process. In 2013, Anita was appointed Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Committee inquiring into the use of personal service companies in the UK.

Anita is a past chair of the ICAEW Tax Faculty, and was a member of the faculty main committee from 1992 to 2001. She continues to advise on practical tax matters as well as lecturing and contributing to major tax journals on topical issues.

David Reaney, Indirect Tax Partner, EY
David is an Indirect Tax Partner at EY, where he has worked for the last 6 years. Prior to that David held a number of senior VAT roles in the HMRC Large Business Directorate. David is a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser and leads the Future of VAT in the UK campaign at EY.

John Shuker, Director, Indirect Tax, PwC
John is an Indirect Tax Leader in PwC’s Tax Practice, with experience of more than 30 years dealing with International Direct and Indirect Tax. He specialises in International Tax for large global MNCs, including European, US and Asian multinationals. John is an FCA member of the ICAEW and a CA members of CAANZ. He has been involved in a number of key developments including the introduction of GST in New Zealand in 1986, wrote extensively on the VAT aspects of the EC Single Market changes from 1993, the introduction of VAT in the GCC from 2018 and has also been involved in the introduction of GST in Canada and India and consultations on revisions to Consumption Tax in Japan.

He is currently responsible for connecting out international firms in the US, Japanese, Indian and Middle East markets. He is also a member of the Indirect Tax Technology Team leading alliances with 3rd party rax engine and other 3rd party software suppliers.

Damon Wright, Indirect Tax Director, Evelyn Partners
Damon has over 25 years’ experience in Indirect Tax and VAT, firstly as an HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) Senior VAT Inspector, then in practice. Since 1997, he has worked for big four and mid-tier firms of accountants. He has also spent some time working in industry for one of the largest UK consumer groups (Virgin) and the (ex) Thomas Cook Group PLC. He is an Indirect Tax Director at Evelyn Partners. Damon is a VAT generalist but specialises in Indirect Tax for International trade, covering international supply chains for goods and services. His work includes advising on Import/Export regimes and the differing interpretations and applications of VAT/GST etc. Concentrating on practical solutions for managing and, where possible, reducing tax and administration costs whilst facilitating the commercial drivers for the businesses. He also has extensive direct experience of advising Aviation, Tour Operator and Travel Agent clients, especially over the last 15 years. This includes many of the largest Tour Operators, Travel Agents, OTAs and Airlines as well as many other travel companies.

His work for clients ranges from the provision of general Indirect Tax advice, including VAT, IPT and APD; the efficient operation of the VAT Tour Operators Margin scheme; detailed reviews of international business structures (including using the variable application of EU legislation across the EU member states) and due diligence reporting.

Iain Wright, Managing Director, Reputation and Influence, ICAEW
Iain trained as a Chartered Accountant at Deloitte and Touche, before being elected as the MP for Hartlepool in 2004. Iain went on to serve as a Minister in both the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Later, he became Chair of Parliament’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee, where he led high profile inquiries into the sale of BHS and working practices at Sports Direct. Iain joined ICAEW in 2018. He achieved an MBA with Distinction from Durham University in 2019. Iain is also a Governor of Middlesbrough College and chairs the policy forum of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.