Melanie Lord

Melanie is a VAT specialist with over 25 years experience focused on providing quality VAT support to businesses and other professional firms that do not have in-house VAT expertise.

Initial VAT experience was gained from being a VAT Inspector until 1987 when Melanie joined what was then Spicer & Pegler as VAT Manager responsible for the North West region.  She moved on to Arthur Andersen heading up the North-East VAT Department until 1994.

Since 1994 Melanie has worked for clients with a wide range of interests, or their advisers, on typically complex VAT matters.  Her client work covers a wide spectrum of VAT issues with a strong emphasis on planning and preventing problems - essentially her ethos is ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure'.

Particular areas of specialism include -

• property, where the rules are very complex, towards removing or reducing the VAT impact on a development or organisation;
• temporary staffing and other agency situations where the VAT rules are uncertain and significant risks exist for the unwary, and
• VAT exemptions especially healthcare, finance, insurance and education, where clients cannot fully reclaim VAT paid to suppliers and therefore maximizing VAT claims is an important business issue.

Melanie is a member of both the VAT Practitioners Group, a national VAT lobbying group and general talking shop and is an Associate member of the Institute of Indirect Tax.  She has been a regular CPD lecturer for various branches of the Law Society, is an expert contributor to the professional guides published by the IOD and delivers training courses for clients tailored to their specific requirements.