Grant Thornton has appointed Vinny McCullagh as tax partner. He specialises in providing indirect tax advice and has been nominated by International Tax Review as one of the UK's leading indirect tax advisers for the past two years. At the firm he will be focusing on strengthening VAT offering in the real estate and financial services sectors, and leading on the development of VAT automation. Grant Thornton has also appointed Tom Townson as partner and head of financial crime. He joins with over 15 years’ experience and has previously been both a  practitioner and a consultant advising a number of financial services firms on a range of issues including fraud, anti-money laundering, sanctions and misconduct.

East Yorkshire-based HMRC-handling and tax dispute specialist Independent Tax has appointed John Norman as associate director. He has previously worked at Grant Thornton, BDO, KPMG and HMRC. He is experienced in dealing with tax and serious fraud from both sides.

Brian Miller has been appointed as director of forensic accounting at Henderson Loggie. Miller takes up his new role on December 1st 2016 at the same time as partner Greig Rowand takes over the role of Head of Forensic in the firm, succeeding Frank McMorrow who will remain as a consultant.

Grunberg & Co has appointed four new staff members. Roger Hunte has joined as assistant tax manager and Emma Herrity joins as a tax adviser. Hunte has experience in providing a wide range of tax services to high net worth individuals and owner-managed businesses, with particular expertise in non-domicile issues and Inheritance Tax. Herrity is a member of the Irish Taxation Institute and has previously worked in the pensions industry before moving into tax. Vijit Verma will lead the Payroll Department and has worked in the payroll industry since 2009 having completed a diploma in accounting & finance. Javaid Khan has become the firm’s in-house accountant and has been an accountant for over 20 years.

Benji Weill, Suraj Patel and Rashida Makai have joined RDP Newman’s audit and accounts department as juniors and will now be studying towards various professional qualifications including the prestigious AAT (Association of Accounting Technician) and ACA (Association of Chartered Accountants) accreditations. Yasmin Pathan has also joined as statutory department manager. She has expertise in VAT and accounts preparation, book-keeping, payroll and the preparation of cashflow reports.