Speaking about all things YesTax, from charitable giving to transparency for staff, found and director, John Moxon tells unLTD’s Rachel Measures about how a group of friends came together to create a fun and friendly company culture.
Established in January 2019 by founder and director John Moxon, YesTax started with the vision that tax shouldn’t just be about taking but giving, too.
Working for an independent business that had been bought out by a big US company, John Moxon, 38, spent four years working under the corporate ownership of a larger company, feeling like things were too corporate and turning a little stale.
Knowing that he didn’t like the direction the company was heading, he and a few co-workers decided to set up their own firm. By the summer of 2019, YesTax had a board of directors and had started recruiting more staff as client numbers grew.
John said: “We’re a relatively young firm and we just wanted to have more fun. We wanted the company to be livelier – we didn’t want to be governed by men in suits from faraway places.”
However, the company had one other important priority – they wanted to establish a charitable element to the business right from the beginning. Once they had everything set up – the business stable and solid – they implemented a policy where 2.5 per cent of their turnover goes to charity. For every single invoice that they raise, 2.5 per cent is given to children’s charities.
“The line of work that we operate in is reasonably profitable and we thought it was a good opportunity to build charitable giving and embed it into everything that we do,” John said: “All the directors have got young kids, so the focus of our charitable giving is very much on children’s charities."
We set up a charity called the Guiding Light Foundation and that’s where all the money we give goes – so every quarter we look at all the money that we’ve invoiced and take 2.5 per cent of that and pass it over to the Guiding Light and then they distribute it to charities around the world.”
To date, YesTax has given over £130,000 to charitable causes. YesTax aim to improve lives around the globe, addressing poverty, inequality, climate, and environmental degradation. Providing support to disadvantaged children, their first main project has been to support victims of child sexual abuse in Nepal.
Antardristi is a Nepalese charity founded in 2003 to address the issue of child sex abuse. The charity aims to increase awareness of child sex abuse and to create safe houses across Nepal to accommodate and educate children who have been the victim of serious sexual assaults.
Alison Ralston, chartered tax adviser at YesTax, visited the country in 2018 to learn more about Antardristi and immediately fell in love with the warmth of the people. It was during this trip that the idea of setting up a Foundation for vulnerable children was conceived.
John has also visited Nepal on two occasions, and both he and Alison came away from Nepal with similar conclusions that it would be a fantastic idea to fuse business and charitable giving, to offer hope to Nepalese children affected by poverty and crime.
“We currently give to a safe house for girls in Kathmandu in Nepal. This is a house which looks after girls who have been sexually abused, and there are very little social services over in Nepal. Generally, what happens is the perpetrator of the crime is often family, they get sent to jail and then there’s no income, and the family unit can fall apart,” John said.
“The safe house that’s been set up houses 30-40 girls and provides them with education and a safe place to go. We’re exclusively funding that operation now, and the charity in Nepal is almost entirely reliant on that money and that’s a good feeling to know we’re making such a big difference to 30-40 girls.”
Not only do YesTax continue to assist Antardristi, but they also brought their charitable giving closer to home in lockdown, helping under privileged areas of Sheffield.
John said: “Alison and Natalia, two of the YesTax Directors, went to the local schools and asked who needs what. There were lots of kids without laptops, or without home learning materials when the schools shut. They spoke to headteachers and said, we’ve got a pot of money here that can be used to make sure that people have got the learning materials that they need during lockdown.”
Charity runs right through the core of the company, and transparency is key to their company culture. Everyone is aware how well the company is performing with company performance details shared with everyone every month. All staff can see how much money the company is earning and how much of this is going to charitable causes.
“Every invoice that we send to clients has a specific statement on that says how 2.5 per cent of the invoice will go to charity. When one of our staff raises an invoice, they can very easily work out how much of their piece of work is going to contribute to the Guiding Light Foundation,” John said.
“Increasingly, more people, particularly younger people, demand more of their employers these days and I think that if you can show as an employer that you are doing more than just lining the pockets of the company owners, it’s a worthwhile thing to do.
“Our staff appreciate it and they know in the back of their minds that every piece of work that they’re doing contributes to a good cause. They really value it. They really like it. Everybody in the office feels a small sense of satisfaction knowing that they’ve contributed directly to that amount.”
YesTax has made a huge impact with their charitable giving, and this drives their staff daily. Not forgetting, however, that a large part of their company culture derives from the employees’ close friendships with one another.
John said: “It’s fair to say that everybody who works here are all mates. There’s 13 of us, nine of which have all worked together for at least six years, and I’ve worked with Mark, another of the directors, for 15 years, and Alison 12 years – so we go back a long time. We have close friend relationships so it’s quite a different feel to your average tax consultancy firm.”
It’s very clear that the company doesn’t feel like a group of people who have been brought together because they’ve been offered a job at the same place, but rather it feels like a group of friends who came together to create a good business and continue to work hard together.
“It’s very much a friendly business – a very laid-back business. We don’t focus on bums on seats, or the nine to five. Everybody works flexibly, and they can work from home if they want to. We want people to be happy.”
John, himself, is increasingly busy in his role as a business owner and director. He said: “The directors have a fantastic team underneath them that they can trust – I think delegation is a skill that you need to learn and over the last ten years, I’ve learnt it quite well – so I’m grateful to have a really good team where the client work is looked after.”
Taking his role within the rest of the company seriously, he can look after everything from cleaners to payroll.
“I have overall responsibility for staff as well. If any staff have got any issues – we do have a HR manager – but ultimately, they can come to me as well. That’s something I’ve done for quite a big part of my career, managing staff, and that’s a part of the job I really like.”
Looking to the future, John, and the rest of YesTax, plan to diversify their areas of specialism. Currently specialising in R&D tax relief, they have recently expanded into capital allowances, having recently recruited a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser to head up the new department.
However, YesTax are not fixated on continual growth. If it comes naturally, they’ll be happy, of course, but for now, they’re just pleased with where they’re at now.
John said: “We’ve got a lovely business. We’ve got 13 staff. Everyone makes a good living. Sometimes there’s this pressure to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and you can work yourself into this big ball of stress. What we’ve said is that if we can have another five years of what we’re doing now, we’d be absolutely delighted with that.”
With the heart of the business centred around charitable giving, working days carried out in a laidback atmosphere, and an understanding founder, YesTax have a wonderful company culture, helping their staff to enjoy their work while supporting people across the world.
