Principal
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Simon has over 20 years experience as a tax consultant, specialising in GST and also providing advice on other tax matters including international tax, corporate tax and FBT.
Simon started as a graduate with Arthur Andersen & Co in Sydney in 1990. At a time when tax graduates were encouraged to take either a direct tax or indirect tax path, Simon worked on client engagements where both tax disciplines were considered equally important. This provided him not only with an interesting client base but also with substantial experience in both corporate and indirect taxes. He transferred to Andersen’s Melbourne office in 1997, and with the introduction in 1998 of the GST regime, Simon commenced his GST specialization, working extensively on GST implementation projects across Australia.
Simon attained the level of Director at Andersen before joining Webb Martin Consulting early in 2002. His current clients include multinational organisations, corporate groups, non-profit organisations and accounting and tax practices of all sizes across Australia. With a diverse client base, Simon’s experience across different industries and client sizes has assisted Simon in providing practical and efficient solutions to technical and often complex tax issues for his clients.
Some recent work for clients has included dealing with a large number of property related GST issues including managing ATO audits, preparing technical submissions and private ruling applications. Other interesting projects include a withholding tax review of transactions made between international group entities, transfer pricing documentation for SMEs, reviewing the tax efficiency of a current corporate group structure including overseas subsidiaries, and GST implications for superannuation funds.
The broad range of clients and tax work has also enhanced Simon’s ability to present on tax matters. He has always been involved in tax presentation commencing with teaching staff in the Big 4 on the GST module of the Professional Year. He is a well regarded presenter and more recently has written and presented GST-based technical papers including special topics at in-house tax training sessions, at CPA Congress, at regional conferences for corporate groups, for the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia, and at the ATAX GST Workshop.
Simon has a Bachelor of Economics from Macquarie University, is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and a Fellow of the Taxation Institute of Australia. He is also a long-standing member of the CPA Australia’s Melbourne Indirect Taxes Committee.
Outside of the office, Simon has a passion for family, food, wine, sport and travel and is happiest when all these can be achieved together. Current sport interests are cycling, golf and tennis.
