TTPP123: Scaling Claritas Tax From 0 to 100 People: The Story by Founder Iain Wright Artwork

The Tax Professionals Podcast

This podcast helps tax professionals, typically by helping you become a better tax professional, helping you pass the ATT and CTA exams, or helping you decide what you want to do with your tax career.

Episodes are released bi-weekly, released on Mondays, and include a mix of solo and guest episodes.

Jack Bonehill, CTA, hosts the podcast. He's an employment tax specialist, working in the area since 2015, and won Tolley's Taxation's Rising Star award in 2023.

Website: https://www.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/

Subscribe: https://www.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/subscribe/

Tax Skills Masterclasses: https://www.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/masterclasses/

Sub Series: Tax Career Success Secrets, sharing the secrets behind tax-career success, and Tax Role Insights, giving you an insider's view into the different available tax roles.

All Episodes

The Tax Professionals Podcast

TTPP123: Scaling Claritas Tax From 0 to 100 People: The Story by Founder Iain Wright

October 06, 2025

Send us a text

Claritas Tax started in 2012 as a one-person venture. Today, it’s a 100-strong firm with eight offices across the UK. In this episode, Iain Wright, founder of Claritas, shares the journey from leaving a safe career path to building arguably the UK’s fastest-growing specialist tax firm.

We talk about the first business plan, the earliest hires, how Claritas scaled, the challenges of competing without a big brand, and the trust it takes to let go of work in order to grow.

Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPP123

The Tax Lab (real scenarios, tackled live: https://www.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/thetaxlab/

Timings

(1:00) Intro to Iain, Claritas Tax, and time-based billing story
(8:00) Iain's options immediately before starting Claritas Tax, back in 2012, and his thought process
(11:00) The business plan Iain drew up prior to starting Claritas - the plan and vision
(13:40) The first hire - was it senior or junior?
(18:02) How did Iain scale the business to 100 employees?
(22:52) What challenges did the business run into as it started to get bigger (past 11 or so staff)
(26:29) How Claritas solved the "lack of brand" awareness problem/challenge
(29:24) The differences between running a small firm and a larger one
(32:33) What's Iain's role like now?
(36:03) The importance of trust
(38:57) Stand out lessons to Iain from his journey - what he wished he knew when he started
(41:01) What's been the hardest part of the journey for Iain?

The Tax Lab

Sharpen your skills as a tax advisor by seeing exactly how I think and approach real scenarios that we encounter as tax professionals, with The Tax Lab.

The Tax Lab gives you a glimpse inside my mind — my thoughts and my approach — as I tackle real scenarios live, so you can refine your own way of working.

Sessions of The Tax Lab are free to attend. Sign up so I can invite you to all future sessions.