Mark Lee (British author)
Mark Lee FCA CTA (Fellow) is a British author and speaker who originally qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1982. He became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation in 2005.
He is Chairman of the Tax Advice Network, Head of Winmark’s Tax Director Network and was Chairman of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) Tax Faculty from 2003-2005. During his Chairmanship of the Tax Faculty Lee appeared before a House of Commons Select Committee representing the ICAEW in connection with the, then proposed, merger of the Inland Revenue and HM Customs & Excise.
In January 2011 Accountancy Age described Lee as "The most networked accountant in the UK". This is a reference to his face to face networking, his prolific contributions to the professional press and his own blogs and networks.
Lee has appeared as an independent commentator in both print and broadcast media since the early 1990s. His most memorable appearance on BBC Newsnight involved him demonstrating a magic trick as part of a feature in which he helped show that accountants are not boring.
Lee no longer gives tax advice but for some years he continued to be a vocal and regular commentator on tax issues. In 2012 Lee adopted a new theme for his talks and activities: 'Boring Is Optional' as part of his mission to help accountants overcome the stereotype and to be more successful in practice, online and in life. He also initiated the virtual INABA awards for accountants who can legitimately claim: "I'm Not A Boring Accountant". Prior to 2012, Lee's articles and commentaries had long focused more generally on accountancy practices and the impact of social media and networking on the professions.
In his free time Lee is an active member of The Magic Circle and the Zodiac Magical Society and is also deputy Treasurer of Norwood charity, a member of the LCCI tax committee, Vice-Chairman of the ICAEW Ethics Advisory Committee and Deputy Chairman of the LSCA Tax Committee.
Lee lives in Pinner in Middlesex.
Authorship
Lee’s first published article was in Taxation Magazine in 1988. He has since been published numerous times by various Tax and accountancy periodicals in the UK, including AccountingWeb, AccountancyAge, Accountancy and Taxation.
Lee was a co-author of The Essential Guide to Self Assessment published by Gee & Co in 1994. He also co-wrote an Accountants' Digest on Partnership Accounts in 1999 and was sole author of three Tolley Tax Digests - The New Basis for Taxing Partnerships in 1998, Tax Aspects of Incorporation in 2002 and Tax Aspects of Incorporation and Disincorporation in 2007. He was also a contributing author of three editions of Taxline Tax planning in the early 2000s and of BusinessWise in 2006. where he wrote about how to find and choose a good accountant.
Lee's final article on tax issues for Taxation Magazine was published in July 2008. In it Lee explained the catalysts that led to him giving up giving tax advice in 2006. Since then Lee's articles, blogs and presentations have focused more on providing practice related, social media and networking advice for accountants and helping those who want to work with or know more about accountants. In 2011 he wrote a series of articles for New Model Adviser magazine to help IFAs better understand tax issues.
In addition to articles in the professional press, business and National media he has been a Consultant Practice Editor of AccountingWeb.co.uk since 2009. He has authored three blogs since 2008: one on the TaxBuzz, one that focuses on Commercial Practice related advice and Social Media advice for Ambitious Accountants and one that simply contains Accountancy and tax related jokes and fun. He stopped updating the TaxBuzz blog at the end of 2011. The accountant jokes and fun blog was rebranded 'Boring Is Optional' in 2012 to better support Lee's talks and articles on this theme.
In 2011 Lee was identified as one of a select number of members of his profession whom every accountant in the UK should follow on Twitter. He is one of very few commentators to advocate restraint in the context of social media generally. However he does recommend LinkedIn as being the only site which "has business value even if you're not going to be active with your profile".
Professional career
After qualifying with a predecessor firm of Chantrey Vellacott DFK, Lee moved to what was then Touche Ross (now Deloitte) to specialise in tax. He later worked for MacIntyre Hudson and then Crowe Clark Whitehill where he became a partner in the mid 1990s. He was then headhunted to be lead tax partner of the professional practices group at BDO Stoy Hayward.
Lee submitted a body of work (on the Tax issues of Incorporation) in lieu of a thesis to secure his fellowship of the Chartered Institute of Taxation in 2005.
Lee was elected Deputy-Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty in 1999, Vice-Chairman in 2001 and then Chairman from 2003-2005. During this time he was an ex-officio Council member of the ICAEW. He also sat on the Tax Faculty Committee, the Tax Technical Committee, the Personal tax and finance committee (which he chaired for some years) and various working parties. He stood down from all such Faculty and tax committees early in 2012.
On leaving BDO Lee decided that he did not want to be a tax partner in an accountancy firm again. He joined a large tax consultancy, Chiltern plc, where he had two titles, Director of Tax Business Development and Director of tax support for professionals. This latter role was one of the catalysts for his subsequent decision to create the Tax Advice Network. The other key catalyst was his membership of the BlackStar club within Ecademy. Lee's Tax Advice Network has been described by Graham Jones (English author) as 'a clear example of the way ahead for online social networks'.
Broadcasts
BBC Breakfast, SKY Business, London Tonight, Newsnight, Moneybox live, Vanessa on Radio London, Working Lunch and AccountancyAgeTV.
Speaking engagements
Lee has been engaged to speak at many seminars and conferences since his first talk at Touche Ross in 1982. He has spoken for ICAEW, CIOT, BDO Stoy Hayward, Clark Whitehill, Barclays Bank, National Westminster Bank, Association of Partnership Practitioners, 2020 group, SWATuk, CCH, LSCA, MGI, SESCA, SOSCA, Accountex and many more