Former EY partner David Kilshaw ‘retired’ from the firm’s private client tax practice in June 2018, but he was always expected to return in some form or other.
He recently told Spear’s that, a decade or so ago, if he’d said to a client ‘Your tax bill wasn’t zero,’ they’d have fired him. But things have changed and the reverse is now true. ‘The “Daily Mail test” has definitely gone into the tax lexicon,’ he added, likening the change of attitudes to the smoking ban.
Kilshaw joined Rawlinson & Hunter in February as senior adviser. One of his colleagues there is Toby Crooks, who joined the firm straight out of university. Once recognised by Spear’s as a rising star, Crooks is now a partner. A senior lawyer at a respected City firm describes him as ‘quirky, but very good’, adding: ‘We recommended him to a client who we thought would benefit from his straightforward way of working.’
Crooks reports a busy year, with highlights including advising a high-profile international family on structuring deal proceeds of more than £1 billion. Earlier in his career he spent 2½ years in the company’s Cayman Islands office during the most fraught days of the financial crisis. It was, he reflects now, ‘an interesting time to be working in the trusts business’.
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