Stepping up from director to partner at any accountancy practice comes with its challenges. But Colm McMullan describes it well.
The big change is that you don’t just work IN the business. You also work ON the business,” he says simply. “The strategic direction of the business is part of what you do, staff matters are part of what you do so it’s an interesting shift in my role that I’ve already stepped into over the last year.”
He describes himself as a ‘man and boy’ employee of Harbinson Mulholland and he’s the latest member of staff to make the professional journey from university graduate to partner, something which Senior Partner Darren McDowell is very proud of.
“Colm is just one of a number of team members who’ve been with us since they graduated from university. We have a very settled, stable and – I hope – happy staff and that’s something we’re very committed to maintaining.”
Strictly speaking, Colm McMullan hasn’t spent his entire career within the walls of the Harbinson Mulholland office. He spent a couple of years on secondment to one of Northern Ireland’s emerging high tech knowledge companies, and he reckons its an experience that gave him valuable knowledge of the other side of the business fence.
It’s also industry experience that has helped him become one of Northern Ireland’s leading professional advisers for young and growing knowledge economy companies. He works regularly with Catalyst and its client companies and is a judge in the organisation’s annual INVENT competition.
On a day to day basis, Colm heads up a nine-strong tax team at Harbinson Mulholland, working on tax matters for both personal and corporate clients, but with a specialisation in a number of areas including employee share schemes, a growth area particularly amongst tech companies here in Northern Ireland and increasingly seen as a means of boosting staff retention and loyalty in a competitive jobs marketplace.
In addition, he’s carved a niche for himself as an expert on the complex UK tax implications
of global share schemes implemented by Northern Ireland-based subsidiaries of bigger US-based operations.
Colm and his team are well versed in areas like Employee Management Incentives, R&D tax schemes and the Patent Box, designed by HMRC to encourage companies to keep and commercialise intellectual property within the UK through a lower rate of corporation tax.
“We have a very strong advisory side to everything that we do,” says Colm. “It’s all about providing the right advice at the right time to our client companies.
“I’m fortunate to be working with people who know their stuff, who are trustworthy and who are good craic as well. We’ve got a strong family ethos here at Harbinson Mulholland and that’s something that isn’t going to change.”
He recently advised on the acquisition of a laser skin care clinic, a transaction which brings with it a number of tax and VAT implications. “We’ll do the same as the big four accountancy firms will do, but we’ll do it in a personalised and dedicated way,” he adds. “Our staff stability helps with that. When our clients start working with someone at Harbinson Mulholland, they’re likely to keep on working with them. We’re big enough to cope, but small enough to care.”
Darren McDowell, for his part, talks about how Harbinson Mulholland tends to find itself working with what he calls the ‘mighty middle’ of businesses in Northern Ireland. The firm has a particularly strong reputation for working with family businesses, but their work goes further than that into a wider range of other enterprises.
“We service our clients’ day to day needs, whether that’s tax related or anything else,
but we’ll also help them with their wider business strategies,” explains Colm McMullan.
“There are plenty of challenges out there at the moment. Almost every organisation, across
every sector, is struggling to recruit and retain people at the moment. But that’s not all. A lot of businesses are facing higher costs and the cost of borrowing is also on the rise. So good professional advice is more important than ever.”