Accountant from Swindon wrote to a succession of ministers but was repeatedly stonewalled by Whitehall 19 July 2021 • 7:13am Hugh Williams said he once had a Treasury minister 'on the ropes'. 'He didn't know the ins and outs as well as I did,' he recalled Credit: Jay WIlliams When the Office of Tax Simplification said last month that it would consider the pros and cons of moving the end of the tax year to March 31 it was presumably unaware that a lone accountant had been campaigning for the same thing – for the past 45 years. Hugh Williams, who runs a tax consultancy in Swindon, said he had realised how "mad" ending the tax year on April 5 was within a few years of qualifying as an accountant in 1970 and had first written to the Treasury to suggest a change in 1976.