Current Talks

Over the years Mark has been commended for his key note speeches at conferences for professional bodies, associations, banks and professional firms.

Further information regarding his availability for speaking engagements appears on the Speaking page of this website.

As an experienced commercial professional speaker, Mark is able to adapt his talks to fit the occasion and the organiser's time slot.  Mark always finishes on time!

Mark is currently available to present his talks in-house for a single firm or for wider audiences of accountants and tax advisers. Each talk can be presented as a half day course, a shorter session perhaps as part of a conference or as a 45-60 minute keynote.

Other talks may also be in development. If you have something specific in mind it's always worth getting in touch as Mark's repertoire is always developing.

• How to avoid professional negligence claims
• Make more profits from your smaller clients
• Topical tax practice management matters
• Practical tax issues for general practitioner accountants
• Incorporation and Disincorporation – tips and traps
• Dealing with difficult clients
• What to do when your NetWorking is NotWorking
• Benefiting from internet related developments and opportunities

How to avoid professional negligence claims
This is a unique and valuable talk highlighting many of the ways that professional negligence claims arise and what you can do to avoid them.

Mark Lee, FCA CTA (Fellow), founder of the Tax Advice Network and a past Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty, shares tips and lessons drawn from his extensive experience in practice and from acting as an expert witness in court.

Mark starts by putting such matters in context and identifies the all too common scenarios that can lead to professional negligence claims. What is it that can and does go wrong and what can ambitious professionals do to minimise the risks of a successful claim?

Amongst the topics addressed are:

• What needs to be proved when a claim is made?
• Tempting but typically poor defences
• Dozens of tips and practical advice to minimise the risks of a claim
• Marketing mistakes best avoided
• Why you need to think carefully before suing for unpaid fees

Make more profits from your smaller clients (without fancy schemes)

This unique session has been highly rated by over a thousand accountants and tax advisers around the country since it was first presented in 2001.

Mark Lee, FCA CTA (Fellow), founder of the Tax Advice Network and a past Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty, shares tips and lessons drawn from his extensive experience in practice. He also distils much of the best advice he has collated from a variety of other sources over the years.

Amongst the topics addressed are:

• Innovative billing strategies that work
• Adding value to compliance related services
• Understanding your tax service matrix
• Avoiding the loss of high value clients
• Easy high impact tax business strategies that really work

Topical tax practice management matters

Ideal for anyone struggling to keep up with day to day developments and worried about the impact of these on how they run their practice.

Mark Lee, FCA CTA (Fellow), founder of the Tax Advice Network and a past Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty, shares tips and lessons drawn from his extensive experience, gathered from his discussions and research amongst general practitioners and his role on pan-professional body working parties.

Amongst the topics addressed are:

• The new filing deadline for paper based returns
• The prospect of in-year reviews by HMRC
• New guidance on tax engagement letters
• Updates to the Guide to professional Conduct
• Tax advice software solutions
• And plenty more!

Dozens of real day to day practical issues, drawn from the weekly tax updates published by the Tax Advice Network.

Mark Lee, FCA CTA (Fellow), is Chairman of the Tax Advice Network and a past Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty. He is quite happy to leave the heavy technical talks to other speakers. His focus is on the practical day to day issues that impact the lives of general practitioner accountants.

The topics to be addressed will be determined close to the day as they will depend on current developments. On past experience they will include matters related to:

• Completion of tax returns;
• PAYE; Tax credits, NICs, VAT;
• HMRC announcements you may have missed;
• Changes in law, practice and interpretation;
• And much more

Incorporation and Disincorporation – tips and traps

For around five years the tax system seemed to invite tax motivated incorporations. Now it has all changed and the choice of business struture needs more informed advice than ever before.

Mark Lee, FCA CTA (Fellow), founder of the Tax Advice Network and a past Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty, shares tips, traps and lessons drawn from his extensive experience and his authorship of Tolley's Guide to Incorporation, Disincorporation and related matters.

Amongst the topics addressed are:

• The four basic choices of business structure
• Key comparisons (beyond the simplistic ones)
• Tax issues on incorporation
• Tax traps on disincorporation
• Dissolution and ESC C16
• Alternative approaches
• Extraction of cash

Dealing with difficult clients

In an ideal world none of us would have to deal with difficult clients. Sadly though we cannot easily dictate their behaviour or sack them all - especially if we don't have responsibility for sacking difficult clients.

Mark Lee, FCA CTA (Fellow), founder of the Tax Advice Network and a past Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty, draws on his extensive experince in practices of all sizes and shares tips and advice as to how you can deal with difficult clients.

Amongst the topics addressed are:

• The different types of difficult clients we encounter
• The options - realsisticly speaking!
• Relationship strategies
• Specific situations that arise and how to overcome them
• Seven key steps that will help

Net…ing: Taking the 'work' out of Networking
Or 'What to do when your networking is not working'

At last! A Business networking talk by a professional who has put all of the theory into practice and who knows what works in real life scenarios.

Mark Lee, FCA CTA (Fellow), founder of the Tax Advice Network and a past Chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty, shares tips and lessons about business networking drawn from many years of successful networking experience in practice. He also distils much of the advice proffered by other 'networking' experts.

Amongst the topics addressed are:

• Key things to do before you attend a networking event;
• Ways to maximise the opportunities during the event;
• Critical actions to take afterwards
• The 5 things you must A.V.O.I.D. when networking

Benefiting from internet related developments and opportunities

Highlighting the various ways that smaller firms are already harnessing the convenience and opportunities available from recent web related innovations and facilities.

You may also have heard Mark speak on a number of other topics. Please contact Mark to discuss any special requests that you might have.