Graduate job offer query - tax accountancy

[soncareer]

Does anyone work in accountancy/finance? One of my sons has been offered a grad training scheme with a mid level company. It’s for tax to do the CTA and ATT qualifications.
It’s not something I really know anything about - work in a completely different field so don’t really feel able to advise him.
If he went ahead with this would specialising in tax (rather than trying to get a role with a company who would support him doing the wider ACA) really limit his future potential career opportunities?
(It's been a tough slog to get this offer so he's under no illusion that actually getting something else wouldn't be easy !)
Thanks for any info ...

I’ve worked in big 4 specialist tax for about 5 years with a CTA qualification. I love it as it’s more legal focussed than numbers and I have zero desire to move into accountancy. That being said, I do think it would be difficult to change to more general finance as I have pretty much zero experience in this area - so make sure he’s sure before applying.

CTA exams are hard - made A levels / degree seem like a complete walk in the park, one paper had a pass rate of 17% (and it’s all uni graduates / top accountancy form students taking the exams).

Progression is great, if you’re in London you can be a manager within 5 years on about £60k and senior manager within about 7 which is about £75k. Feel free to PM me
If he needs more details.

Typically 35% to 50% pass each CTA paper each sitting, which looks a lot worse than ICAEW's typical 75-80% success rate. However, don't let the stats frighten you. The vast majority of students sitting ICAEW receive full study support with the 3 companies I named above. Many people sitting CTA are studying independently having passed their ICAEW or ACCA exams already and have exhausted the study support their employers provide. They are also holding down extremely demanding roles, because they are already in senior positions, leaving little time to study. If you could actually see the pass rates for the training providers your DS will be studying with you would find that they typically achieve around 80% pass rates for each CTA module. This is exactly the same situation for ACCA as well, another qualification with global pass rates of around 30% for each of the final papers, but success rates of 80%+ if you study with BPP, Kaplan or FI. I can assure you that these guys really do know what they are doing & your DS will be given a study package during his training contract worth £000s. His future employer is willing to invest in his training because they think he is capable of it. Their recruitment process is designed to weed out those most likely to fail. He has done very well to get an offer for such a prestigious scheme.

I did this route at a Big 4 and then specialised in a niche area of tax - CTA often gives that option which ACA doesn't as it is more generalised. In general the biggest drawback is that the tax departments don't necessarily have particularly quiet periods (unless a pure compliance team) so it can be tricky to find the hours to study.

The CTA is a tricky beast - I have a first from Oxbridge and did not find it easy.

I really appreciate all the info you've all given here. It's given me a much better perspective.

If hes got an offer from a good mid tier firm then its a good prospect. They look after their employees and don't work them into the ground in the same way as big four. Longer term it pays well and plenty of industry as well as practice options.

I think tax is a better area to start in than audit, more office based. Auditors all desperate to leave after 3 years whereas people more likely to stay on in tax.

Thank you Zen - good to know

Hi. I did ACCA 20+ years ago and about 5 years ago decided to do my CTA. Oh my God. The CTA for me was really hard, especially the final paper because it's not something I will do in industry. You have 3 years to pass the papers then they start expiring so I had to do one of the papers again.
But I did pass it eventually... If in a tax environment all the time, it's probably a bit easier. It's a lot of work though.

Should add that my CTA was supported by my employer even though it's not a tax/accountancy firm and I work in industry

Is he being put into a corporate tax or private client tax department immediately or will he specialise later?

Doing business tax without an accounting background is difficult so all our corporate tax grads do the combined ACA/CTA route and the private client grads do ATT/CTA as they don't need the accounts experience/knowledge.

IIRC CTA is equivalent to a level 7 qualification like a master's, same as the final levels of ACA and ACCA. It is tough, but a training contract at a mid tier firm has decent study support.

I would agree with PP that tax can be nicer from a lifestyle point of view if constantly travelling and working off-site (at sometimes lovely and sometimes grotty locations) isn't your thing. Being an audit trainee is a lot of scanning, photocopying and ticking...

CTA is a great qualification to have. I wouldn't consider it a disadvantage unless he has a burning desire to be working on audits (either at all or in the near future - we've had people move depts post qualification and we don't put them on the same contracts as grad trainees because they're not green).

We don't tend to take tax specific grad scheme applications; we select the people we think are most suited to tax (as far as you can tell at that stage!) from our general graduate recruitment. Sounds like that's what's happened here?

Logistria I'm not100% sure on all that detail but that's all incredibly useful - thank you.

And Toomuch - sorry I missed your message - thank you for sharing your experience.

Sorry - name change fail below

I'm ATT and CTA. Big 4 grad scheme a while ago.

You can 100% train in CTA and then move to another part of the business without taking a pay cut/ demotion. Happens all the time.

It's the on the job skills that are important. Client handling, business development, people management etc. that are really valued.

That's good to know shemakesmewait

Previously big 4. People did move out of tax occasionally but it was pretty chill so it wasn’t popular.

I work in big 4, not tax but I see all my friends in tax who work 9-5, mostly from home and a pretty chill life. They get paid loads as well! I would say go for it!

DS will like the 'chill' answers :-)

If it is a good offer from a good firm I would take it. There will always be a need for tax specialists. Accountants (I’m one of them) there are plenty of us and my company is transferring all accountancy roles to Poland. Tax is staying in the UK.

@beansandcoffee that sounds tough, hope things go ok for you

Thank you Topcat2014.

@Beansandcoffee I hope all works out ok with your job

CTA is really tough. I found ACA a walk in the park but CTA was so hard. I'd echo what other people said, plenty move from audit to tax but I've never known anyone go the other way and I think it's because tax is more fun and, as someone else said, more chill. Sometimes you'll be manically busy but it's not relentless like audit.

The one thing I would say is that my area of tax is so niche that it's been a bit of a blocker when I have considered moving. I don't have anything like enough CT knowledge (I am personal tax ) so I may want to avoid specialising too much to start if possible

It will limit exit opportunities but there is still the ability to move into industry or cross service within tax (for example, some tax grads move transactions).

Personally I did ATT/CTA and the former is easy, as it is computations based. CTA is a different beast and most will tell you its the hardest out of the Chartered qualifications (ACA, ACCA, CIMA etc).

Hours on a tax grad scheme will be much nicer than audit/assurance. Audit grads in my firm (top 10) are run ragged and rarely do they stay on after qualification. Tax is almost the complete opposite on retention rates.

I specialised early on in personal tax, specifically in Inheritance tax, trusts and estates. I knew however what area of tax I liked due to my law degree, and I enjoy every moment. As mentioned above its not a numbers game; it's an interpretation of the law and an argument to put forward your position.

I started off in compliance (tax returns) but moved to my current firm where I am 100% advisory and love my role.

Compliance in tax can be monotonous, but getting into advisory is where the fun is.

DH did ATT and CTA but unlike other posters he works for a small firm of accountants. They funded his ATT and then he funded most of CTA as he didn't need it for the role. He could have gone to a big firm to get the CTA funded but he would have had to take a drop in salary and sign a training contract that only allowed one fail. In the end he only failed one paper once anyway but it was too much of a risk at the time.

I don't know if its just in our area but there is big demand for people with CTA. He also does some charity work with his qualification, for a charity that helps older people on low incomes who need to submit tax returns or have got in a mess with HMRC (usually because they have several pensions.)

I did ACA with a big 6 firm, but was based in the corporate tax department, it did mean I did the time in audit (20 weeks) so when i left, i wasn't trapped into tax at all. I enjoyed tax but prefer doing it as part of general accounting roles.
So I'd say its limiting to just do tax, unless thats what you want to spend your life doing. But more general audit, then into tax is much more flexible.