Profile
Dr Trevor Thomas
Dr Trevor Thomas is an international tax consultant by profession. He graduated with an
Honours Degree in Law from Warwick University in 1979, where he was president of the
Student Law Society. Thereafter, he qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen & Co and specialised in taxation with Deloitte Touche. He set up his own firm T L Thomas & Co, Chartered Accountants, in Greenwich, London in 1988, which became a Tax Consultancy in 1995. Dr Thomas holds a Master Degree in Comparative Business Law and a PhD in Revenue Law. His doctoral thesis was on offshore tax planning for sportspeople and entertainers.
In the late 1980’s Trevor was an active member of the then recently formed Social Democratic Party (SDP) and he appeared in their 1989 Party Political Broadcast, alongside the leader Dr David Owen, and the MP’s John Cartwright and Rosie Barnes.
During this period Trevor was a non-executive Director of the Greenwich Healthcare Trust, and a concurrent Finance Director of a high profile, fast-growing construction company in the north-east of England, for whom he secured venture capital investment from Baronsmead VCT in support of a successful management buyout.
During this period Trevor was a non-executive Director of the Greenwich Healthcare Trust, and a concurrent Finance Director of a high profile, fast-growing construction company in the north-east of England, for whom he secured venture capital investment from Baronsmead VCT in support of a successful management buyout.
Throughout the 1990’s Trevor wrote a large number of technical articles on taxation for
academic and professional journals, as well as a book, Offshore Companies and Trusts in UK
Tax Planning in 1995. He also represented many clients before the Tax Tribunals, gaining some prominence with Restorex Ltd v HM Customs & Excise (15014 Restorex Ltd [1997] BVC 4132) in which he successfully argued, on appeal, that the imposition of a VAT security deposit, on the facts of the case, was unconscionable, unwarranted and should be rescinded. For some time, it became the "go to" case for arguing against VAT security deposits, and was featured in tax journals and textbooks.
In 1997 Trevor was invited by the Financial Times to contribute to the football bungs debate resulting in his article Tax Deals Not All Offside in which he argued that footballers, like any other British taxpayer, have the right to minimise their exposure to taxation through the use of tax avoidance schemes.
During this time Trevor’s firm, T L Thomas & Co, became a boutique tax consultancy focusing on high profile sportspeople and entertainers. Trevor acted for more British boxing champions than any other firm in the UK. Moreover, his clients were involved in world championship contests — in most of the weight divisions — across the globe.
Trevor has lectured widely in both an academic and professional capacity. He has also served as a University External Examiner for degrees in finance, accountancy, taxation and business administration.On a commercial level, he was a regular lecturer for Barclays Bank at seminars on business start-ups.
From 2008 to 2010 Trevor was a Special Advisor to the Jamaican Government on the establishment of an Offshore Financial Centre on the Island. His book Offshore Jamaica: The Path Ahead was endorsed by the Jamaica National Building Society and the Foreword was penned by His Excellency the Honourable Burchell Whiteman OJ, the Jamaican High Commissioner in London. Trevor was formally presented to the Queen’s Resentative, Governor General Sir Kenneth Octavius Hall ON GCMG OJ at Jamaica House, in 2008.
On the literary side Trevor’s first novel The Laundryman was published in late 2005. It enjoyed literary success in the UK and was chosen for ‘Your Favourite Reads of 2005’: BBC Open Book, Radio 4 Arts and Drama, hosted by Mariella Frostrup, which spotlights new fiction and picks out the best of the paperbacks. Other winners that year were ‘The Time Travellers’ Wife’ by Audrey Niffenegger and ‘State of Fear’ by Michael Crichton.
His novel was republished as an ebook in 2014 under the title Catching the Laundryman, and was for the first time available internationally. It has spent over six months on the US Amazon’s Top 100 Financial Thrillers, peaking at No 2.
His second novel, available as an ebook was Spinning a Spider’s Web, published, with much less fanfare, in 2015. It enjoyed lower sales, though an Amazon reviewer was kind enough to write “What I like about this writer is that not only does he tell a gripping story, but he writes it well. It was a real pleasure just reading the words and the way the ideas, plot and characterization smoothly interacted into a suspenseful tale. I read this book because I was so impressed with his first book. I was not disappointed.”
Trevor’s first play Shall I Kill Mama was produced by Marysal Productions at the Broadway Theatre in 2006 — featuring Lavern Archer and Michael Palmer — and at the Blue Elephant Theatre in 2007— with Victor Romero Evans — earning three stars from London’s Time Out magazine who described the comic drama as a “domestic moral maze,” with Reviews Gate commenting, “Mama is a splendid creation.”
Trevor has appeared on several radio programs, most notably a Radio 4 discussion with Trevor Phillips and Gina Yashere on black writers in which he controversially opposed the then prevailing view that black authors had an obligation to concentrate on race issues.
From 2010 to 2013 Trevor was the Managing Director of Maybridge Consultants Limited, a company which provided accounting, payroll and tax refund services to the construction industry. It was also a proud sponsor of Bromley FC.
Most recently, Trevor ran Maximoor CIS Limited together with his son, Myles Thomas, a qualified Tax Technician, who is on the Chartered Tax Advisor Pathway. Maximoor CIS is engaged in a market sector similar to that of Maybridge, however Myles, who now has sole control of the business, will probably diversify and rebrand.
Trevor divides his time between his professional work with his writing. He is divorced and happily lives alone.