Somerset chartered accountant Paul Aplin has won a top industry award in recognition of his influential work on taxation issues.

Mr Aplin, who writes in the County Gazette’s monthly Business section, was presented with the Outstanding Industry Contribution award at the British Accountancy Awards ceremony held at the Tower of London.

Mr Aplin, tax partner at Somerset firm A.C. Mole & Sons, said: “I have tried over the years to provide a voice in the corridors of Whitehall for the small business community, a community vital to the UK economy but one that I fear is not as well understood as it should be.

“My ambition is to get more people from HMRC and government to spend time with small businesses to try to see, at first hand, the problems they face.”

Introducing the award, Accountancy Age editor Kevin Reed praised Paul Aplin’s “calm, relaxed, but determined, demeanour” saying: “He has achieved much. He is widely recognised as HMRC’s point man in helping it understand and improve its services. At the time of the Carter Review into the future of HMRC in a digital age, he was instrumental behind the scenes in getting HMRC to change its mind on bringing forward self-assessment filing deadlines.”

A chartered accountant and chartered tax adviser, Mr Aplin became his firm’s first tax partner in 1992. He and the practice received recognition in 1997 for being the first to file a tax return electronically and were the first firm to file a return over the internet in 2001.

Mr Aplin was recognised with an OBE for his services to the profession in the Queen’s 2009 Birthday Honours.

He is chairman of the ICAEW Tax Faculty Technical Committee and you can follow him on Twitter @PaulAplinOnTax.