Partner
Accountants & Tax Advisers
London
Private office
Tax planning
Entrepreneurs
Families
UHNW
United Kingdom
Europe
Middle East
United States
Tax adviser
Spear’s Review
Tom Evennett, a partner at EY and co-head of EY’s UHNW team, explains that ‘private clients are a real key focus area, both in the UK and globally, for [EY]’.
With the addition of the US/UK cross-border team (formerly EY Frank Hirth) to the private client services team, ‘our clients can get the absolute best, both from a UK but also a UK/US perspective, in the personal tax world’.
Adviser Profile
As a Partner in the private client practice within the UK&I Private Tax team (EY’s specialist offering to high-net-worth individuals and private businesses), Tom Evennett’s current client list comprises everyone from high-growth entrepreneurs to long-standing family businesses and family offices seeking to plan for the future. ‘It is a privilege to support the complex needs of multi-jurisdictional, multi-generational families,’ says Evennett, who joined EY as a partner in 2018, before taking a leading role in the firm’s private client services shortly afterwards.
Asked what he finds so rewarding about his current role, Evennett cites the diversity of his clients, not just in their geography (he lists the UK, the US, continental Europe and the Middle East as particular hot-spots) and status, but also in their wider tax and business needs. ‘Each stage of the client’s evolution is different, and requires a dedicated, customised team of specialists,’ he says.
Evennett is well-placed to draw from an equally diverse pool of specialists around him. ‘I sit within a nexus of similar leads in 50 countries,’ he says, referring to EY’s Private Tax international network. The initiative is also intended to give private clients a direct route to access the firm’s wealth of specialisms. Within the tax team alone, this includes services associated with owning, managing and preserving privately owned business and wealth, including tax and structuring advice, asset protection and succession planning.
Evennett describes the consolidation of the private client team within EY Private Tax and the ambition of the firm in this space as demonstrated by the acquisition of the Frank Hirth (now called EY’s US/UK Cross Border team) business in 2021 as a career highlight.
After two decades in the tax world, he is well-acquainted with the ever-changing tax landscapes, both in the UK and elsewhere, and speaks pragmatically about the need for reform. ‘The tax code in the UK remains very complex for individuals and their wealth structures,’ he says. ‘I am very supportive of simplifying the tax system wherever possible.’
Prior to entering the City, Evennett graduated from the University of Oxford, before receiving his Executive MBA from Bayes (formerly Cass) Business School.
Rank: Recommended
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