A former big four accountant says she is “determined” for her expat-focused tax advisory website to hit turnover of €1 million within the next two years, as her business carves out space in a busy market.
Stephanie Wickham founded expattaxes.ie in 2019, after returning with her family from Australia after eight years abroad. She spent that time in Perth working with KPMG’s global mobility practice helping to relocate employees.
Five years later, the site has worked with more than 3,000 clients and has gone from “very minimal pocket money” to projected revenues of more than €700,000 by the end of this year — up 700 per cent since 2019.
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The company has also seen its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation margin average 70 per cent across the last four years of business.
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Ms Wickham said she is “determined” to hit the €1 million revenue mark within the next few years, adding that there is “no reason” the company won’t hit that milestone next year.
“Revenue is not everything, but definitely that’s something I’m focusing on. Already two months into 2024 our revenue has exceeded the comparable period by 57 per cent, so there’s no reason that we couldn’t do that in 2025. I think that’s a stretch target that we could aim for,” she said.
She credits some of the company’s success to the pandemic, which not only made people more comfortable with the concept of a virtual tax adviser but led to a “mindset shift” about working abroad.
“What I would see now [post-pandemic] is a drawback to the office at HR level, but a latent desire in people who potentially are in a market that’s tight, to go back to the Covid way of working. Even though we don’t have the same level of movement that we did because of Covid, I think it’s a mindset shift. People see that they can do their job remotely, and they start asking the question, why can’t I do this from Dubai or Spain?” she said.
In a competitive landscape with other big online players, Ms Wickham says her company has differentiated itself by specialising solely in expat tax advice, as well as with targeted marketing campaigns and innovations.
In particular, she is betting on an influx of business from the UK market to Ireland after the British government announced this week that its non-domiciled tax regime will be scrapped next year.
She said they are developing a Web-based application, with funding from the Local Enterprise Office, to simplify the remittance tax process, in particular for non-domiciled taxpayers.
“We can fight AI or we can run with the flow of it and I think AI and technology in general is where people want to go. My thinking is we can’t sit still, we have to think about making ourselves the best at what we do and think outside the box a little bit,” she said, adding that she hopes to launch a minimum variable product version of the app later this year.
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