S&W has hired Karim Budabuss and Philippe Gamito as partners in its business tax practice, covering R&D tax incentives and VAT advisory respectively, a hire that matters broadly because it deepens specialist capability at a firm rebuilding its tax bench since returning to independent ownership, and matters specifically to accountancy professionals because it lands as HMRC's R&D compliance crackdown has cut genuine SME claim volumes sharply, increasing demand for advisers able to distinguish legitimate claims from the poor advice HMRC blames for much of the sector's non-compliance.

S&W is a UK top ten accountancy and advisory firm returned to independence in 2024 through investment from Apax Partners, now employing more than 2,300 staff and 150 partners across 19 towns and cities in the UK, Ireland and France.

Karim Budabuss joins the R&D tax incentives team from ForrestBrown with over 14 years in engineering and innovation incentives consulting. Philippe Gamito joins the indirect tax team from Baker McKenzie with over 15 years advising financial services clients on VAT, including insurance and crypto.

Mark Webb, head of business tax at S&W, said the appointments support an ambition to "build the UK's leading adviser to entrepreneurial and mid-market businesses."

Budabuss's arrival lands at a pivotal moment. HMRC's crackdown has cut the estimated error and fraud rate from 16.7 per cent in 2020-21 to around 5.9 per cent more recently, but SME claim volumes have fallen roughly 31 per cent, as genuine claimants grew wary of increased scrutiny.

HMRC has pointed to poor advice from unscrupulous agents targeting sectors where R&D is unlikely, care homes and retailers among them, as a driver of that non-compliance, raising the value of advisers with a credible track record distinguishing legitimate claims from spurious ones.

Gamito's crypto and financial services VAT specialism adds a second growth area, as digital assets and cross-border fintech structuring generate indirect tax questions that fall outside most generalist tax teams' expertise.

For the sector, both hires reflect a broader pattern: as tax authorities tighten scrutiny in specific niches, credible specialist expertise becomes a differentiator rather than a compliance cost.

Source: Consultancy.uk / Apex Accountants / BM Magazine