Scott McIver

To our valued colleagues at Armstrong Watson, Members MSI Global Alliance.

Recently we at The Renaissance Group Chartered Accountants referred two of our valued long time Canadian clients to Armstrong Watson, members of the MSI Global Alliance. Our clients had some UK filing needs and a lot of concerns in this regard. Our clients were thrilled with the service provided by Armstrong Watson and in particular the helpful proactive care from Scott McIver. They contacted us right after the first meeting and again after the services were complete to express their complete confidence and more importantly, how comfortable they felt with the advice they were getting and felt that someone really cared! From the Renaissance Group perspective, I found Armstrong Watson to be effective, efficient and great team players, thereby making us hero’s for our client.

Thank you to Scott and all the team at Armstrong Watson.

In December 2014, at a meeting held in the offices of our Canadian Accountants, Jill Guthrie and Scott Griffin, of The Renaissance Group, Chartered Accountants, it was decided that we needed to find another accounting firm in Scotland to represent us with our affairs.

Our Canadian Accountants has met representatives of Armstrong Watson at a seminar of an association they were both members of and recommended, after they had spoken to your people, that we meet with them upon our return to Scotland. An appointment was set up to meet with Scott McIver.

Just before Christmas we went to your Dumfries office to meet with Scott and present him with our tax situation. Scott immediately impressed us with his friendly and approachable manner. He was fully prepared for our meeting, knew the facts as presented to him by Jill Guthrie and he dealt with out situation in a professional and knwledgable fashion. He prepared a timetable to conclude out tax issues, monitored the situation carefully and followed up with us appropriately.

We also found the staff at Armstrong Watson to be friendly and welcoming.

We look forward to a continued relationship with your firm.

We are business owners from Dumfries and Galloway and we have had the rather unfortunate experience of being subjected to an enquiry by HM Revenue & Customs.

We had previously thought our affairs had been correct and up to date, however, we had not fully understood the taxation system and were unaware of certain reporting requirements and the interaction with international tax issues.

Having never had any former experience of an HM Revenue & Customs enquiry we did not know what to expect but from the start of the enquiry Armstrong Watson, and in particular, Scott McIver assisted us throughout the process.

When we first met Scott he immediately made us feel at ease and took on a great deal of the burden of the enquiry. Scott and his team, which also consisted of Graham Poles, collated and analysed all the necessary information. HM Revenue & Customs had requested details of our business and personal affairs for the previous 20 years and Armstrong Watson prepared a formal report for submission to HM Revenue & Customs.

Perhaps the most daunting aspect of the enquiry was the formal interview we had to attend with HM Revenue & Customs Officers. Scott and Graham both attended the meeting with us which provided us with a great deal of comfort.

Scott ensured there was always good and clear communication between us and HM Revenue & Customs so that we all knew exactly where we were, what was required and what needed to be done.

As a direct result of their efforts the penalties which HM Revenue & Customs could impose were reduced as far as possible. This in itself was a great result, however, by far the greatest benefit was knowing that we had Armstrong Watson and Scott assisting us through the process.

We are a small family firm and look to our accountants as a lot more than just running the numbers. We moved to Armstrong Watson a couple of years ago and have since been working closely with Scott McIver, Nicola Zambonini and Douglas Russell. We have been delighted with the personal and friendly way business is done perfectly suited to our informal family style of business. We have also been impressed by the scope of Armstrong Watson as a company and complex matters of long term planning have been dealt with in a professional and engaged way. We believe business should be enjoyable as well as profitable and our team at Armstrong Watson seem to share these values!