­WHO I HELP

High net worth individuals. SMEs. International organisations.

HOW I HELP

Tax planning and consultancy services.

SECTORS/SUPPORT

Construction & Property. Agriculture. Engineering. Food & Drink.

“MY WORK ALLOWS CLIENTS TO SLEEP BETTER AT NIGHT.”

Caroline Butler is a Director in our Corporate Tax team. She is an AITI Chartered Tax Advisor, with over 20 years of professional experience. She provides tax planning and consultancy services to a wide range of clients, including high net worth individuals and SMEs operating across the island of Ireland and internationally. Caroline has in-depth knowledge of VAT specifically, cross border transactions, VAT on property and recoverability.

She helps her clients by gaining a thorough understanding of their businesses and identifying the tax planning opportunities for them both from a corporate viewpoint and owner manager perspective. Caroline also supports clients in navigating new markets, ensuring they are aware of key tax issues that may impact their commercial objectives.

Caroline has worked closely with our Corporate Finance team on a number of key transactions. She also routinely works with our Insolvency team.

CREATIVE SOLUTIONS

“I always seek to embrace creative thinking to provide client or solutions. I have the ability to analyse a situation and take responsibility for the decision and the resulting outcome.”

‘SUPER COLLABORATOR’

“The core AAB Group value that most speaks to me is that ‘collaboration is our superpower.’ I genuinely enjoy working across a broad spectrum of business units, and recognise the incredible learning opportunity this brings. I am motivated by helping other team members in different disciplines win and complete assignments. As AAB continues its growth, I’m always in touch with the wider team in order to develop and expand my own knowledge and to support the wider group. In fact, my enthusiasm for collaboration was recognised by AAB in June 2023, when I achieved an award for being a Super Collaborator.”

APPROACHABILITY

“In my opinion, the ideal relationship with a client is one where the client trusts my advice, is open to sharing ideas with me, and feels comfortable in in approaching me on both tax and wider business matters. It’s important to me that clients know they can come to me with any questions, issues or queries they may have.”

FORESEEING CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES

“Clients expect timely and accurate advice from me, but also the ability to identify any potential issues and opportunities ahead of time.”

CONSTANTLY LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER

“The most satisfying part of working with colleagues for me is learning from them. There’s a brilliant culture of sharing knowledge across the wider AAB team. Our teams are so supportive, and I personally love seeing team members progress in their own careers.

I truly believe every day is a school day! I don’t think you ever stop learning from people and helping them learn. It’s a big part of the AAB Group ethos: teamwork, collaboration, and learning from each other.”

GETTING A WELL-ROUNDED VIEW

“It’s always great to get in front of a client, and meet people face-to-face; I find that it really helps to enhance relationships. The more social aspect of our work – with colleagues as well as clients – is also just enjoyable! We like people coming in the door telling us about their children, their holidays, all that kind of thing. It also helps us get a feel for a person’s financial objectives, and gives us a more well-rounded view of their priorities, interests and objectives, which allows us to be able to suggest certain things that could really help them.

On the other hand, methods of communication like Teams calls or email offer efficiency and can be really helpful as an introductory tool and just to keep momentum going. It would be hard to have to set up a face-to-face meeting for every small query, so having those more efficient ways of communicating really helps to just keep things progressing and ticking along, as you can deal with the smaller things in a much quicker way.”

KEEPING UP WITH THE PACE OF CHANGE

“The speed of change within the tax environment can be challenging – it’s tough to keep up with it all sometimes and ensure we’re advising clients based on the most up to date information. But we respond to this by doing plenty of regular extra reading, attending webinars and courses, updating each other, and making sure we always discuss any issues or potential issues with clients and advise them appropriately, with all relevant recent changes in mind.”

COMMERCIAL AWARENESS & CLARITY

“The greatest strength I bring to the wider AAB team is my commercial awareness, and my knowledge of what’s important. You have to be able to fully understand a client’s situation and needs to be able to give them the best advice in a clear and direct way that’s understandable for them, and I’m excellent at that.”

PEACE OF MIND

“One thing I love about my line of work is that I’m able to consistently give clients assurance and peace of mind. With my expertise and experience, I’m able to resolve people’s problems and reassure them that everything is in order, allowing them to focus on running their business and concentrate more on what they’re experts at. It takes away people’s stress, and just allows them to sleep a bit better at night, which is hugely rewarding and satisfying for me.”

PEOPLE ARE FUNDAMENTALLY INTERESTING

“There’s a perception sometimes that the industry is boring – but this couldn’t be further from the truth. No two days are the same – even if we’d like them to be! I can honestly say that I’ve never had a boring day at AAB. You get to meet people from every avenue of life, and you can end up working in any type of business sector.

People are at the heart of what we do, and people are fundamentally interesting – so, when you’re dealing with people from different industries, sectors, types of business, as well as people with different life goals and priorities, and people internal to AAB alongside external clients… it can’t really be boring, can it?”