Meet David Gage, our new Partner and Head of VAT
Old Mill is continuing its drive into new markets with the appointment of highly experienced tax specialist David Gage as Partner and Head of VAT.
20th January 2023
David has been brought on board to support Old Mill’s growth ambitions by expanding our services both to existing clients and the wider market.
David was a management consultant before moving into tax in 2012, says he believes his commercial background combined with his tax expertise can help raise Old Mill’s profile across a wider range of client firms.
David says: “VAT is a complicated area of tax, and the compliance requirements are becoming more and more stringent. As a result, most small and medium sized accountancy firms don’t have the relevant expertise, while the larger practices are putting all their resources into their bigger clients, leaving a huge number of underserviced businesses in the area.
I believe Old Mill can fill that gap by offering the client-centric, tailored and personal approach you’d expect from a small family firm combined with the expertise you generally only find in large practices. I want to build on the impressive growth that Old Mill has achieved over the past year to expand our client base and scale up our services to serve more clients, across existing and new markets.”
As well as being CTA qualified (Chartered Tax Adviser), David has a degree in business and management and a Masters in European business. From a VAT perspective he specialises in high value land and property transactions and international goods and services. David also has particular knowledge and experience in VAT compliance, including tax investigations, having been called upon to offer his expert opinion in VAT inspections and fraud investigations, along with VAT professional negligence claims, on numerous occasions.
David, who has a seven-year-old son and lives in Bristol, says while Old Mill’s ambitious growth plans were a big pull, he was impressed by our people-centric culture and its refreshing approach to career development:
David says: “Not only does Old Mill have an excellent reputation in the market, and great ambition – which was a hugely attractive proposition – but also, a really refreshing approach to leadership and personal development. Our Director of Tax, David Maslen is a very people-focussed, collaborative leader, who encourages his team to bring new ideas to the table and follow their own professional passions. This not only makes for a highly motivated team, but naturally ensures there is a very broad range of knowledge there too.”
David Maslen, Director of Tax said: “2022 was a hugely successful year for the tax team, we doubled in size to 36, which includes the appointment of a number of senior hires, including Chris Watts as Associate Director in September. We now start 2023 as we mean to go on with the appointment of David Gage as Partner and Head of VAT.”