Tax Supervisor - Kim Ward

Well, it turns out that accounting isn’t that boring after all. Although those considering audit might want to take a careful look at what’s involved.

Accountancy was cited by almost everyone as a brilliant place to get a solid understanding of business and many people exploit the training as a springboard into other careers both within finance and more broadly (such as management consultancy). This makes it a pretty good option for those who aren’t entirely sure which direction to take but who want a solid qualification from which to build.

The exact qualification you sign-up to will depend on what interests you and what slant you want your training to have. Typically at the big 4 you’ll be going for the ACA, which probably has the edge in terms of prestige. If you’re interested in being an accountant within a business then you’ll be heading in the direction of CIMA. Public service has its own specialised training and that’s CIPFA.

Something that may seem a little counter intuitive is that you don’t actually have to be a math geek to be successful in this industry. Whilst it might help for more specialized areas such as tax and actuarial work, most people we spoke to didn’t have a clue what the whole top row of a calculator does!

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Kim Ward and I am a Tax Supervisor and I work in the London Tax Group.

What is Tax?

Tax advice comes into two main things, the first is compliance and therefore that is the process of completing corporation tax returns and income tax returns and various other returns and the other side is advisory.

What attracted you to this career?

Tax is always changing and it is something that is intellectually stimulating because legislation always changes and therefore you have to keep up to date with everything. I have always been quite numerical, I must admit, I used to love maths when I was younger, but accountancy isn't just about numbers, it is about people and you have to have good people skills because obviously you are dealing with clients every day.  I like the idea of the variety of work that will come with tax and also the intellectual challenge that it led to.  Comparing tax with audit - with tax you have a great deal of clients on the go at one time, so it is all about multi-tasking with the different things you have to balance, where as with audit you tend to work with one client office all the time, a week or so at any one time.

What does your job involve?

There are lots of bits to be honest, in tax there are two main bits, one being compliance, one being what is known as advisory.  So compliance is your income tax returns, corporation tax returns and just the number crunching.  The other side is advisory so you if you are advising clients who are perhaps buying a company or wanting to acquire a property, or they want to buy some property in Germany for example, it's how best to structure that if they are UK resident or looking into various things like that.

As regards to BDO we have a joint advisory and compliance role, a lot of the larger firms tend to actually split the two.  It is very good to get a good grounding, what is known as compliance, of the returns before you actually go on the advisory.   So we get to manage our own clients on the compliance side but also the advisory as well so it is a joint role.

I work in corporate tax specifically, in property sector generally.  Not all my clients are property but the large majority are but actually they are going to be run by mainly entrepreneurs because that is how the property business works so we do a certain amount of high net worth as well.

What do you do on a typical day?

Our standard hours are 9.30-5.30, with tax you tend to be predominantly based in the office. You do get to go to client meetings also what is know as tax revisioning, so you go on site meet the client and do the tax computations with the audits generally and obviously we have lunch breaks, it really depends, no day is the same as any other day, you might just have a query from a client on the phone, a lot of work is obviously computer based.

Obviously you are spending a lot of time on site with the client and tax is far more office based but in a way it is nice because it means that you are not out of the office the whole time so it is more of a fun thing to go and see the client.

Describe the process of your work?

The client would phone up with the problem, we would then establish how much work they wanted us to do on it, so it is the different between having proper written advice and our general view on it, whether they want effectively what is known as a sign off.  We would then look at the problem and see what the issues are, have a discussion within the actual client group. We then establish whether we need to speak to any specialist about it because there are various different specialists within the firm and then look at the actual potential legislation and any revenue guidance or anything that is on issue and then it depends on the forms that the client actually wants, whether that is a written memo or a report or just an email.

What are the speicialisms within your industry?

I work in corporate tax and another specialism is personal tax so working more with individuals, there is also trusts for example, I can’t think of any more off hand to be honest.

What are the best bits about your job?

The best bit is the challenge and also the variety, you will just get random queries from clients just phoning up and just asking you something, you don't have the time to prepare so you just have to know what you are talking about or at least have a general idea what you are talking about.  It is very challenging because you are not just doing the same thing day in day out and the higher up you get in levels the more responsibility you get and therefore the more clients you have and having your own clients calling you rather than calling the partner or director on the job.  In tax there are no absolute answers, in some instances there are but it is an interpretation question much like lawyers have to interpret the law, we are effectively tax lawyers in a way so there are areas where it is grey, so its is whether you can put forward a good argument, you have to have what is known as a good filing position, so you have to know what you are saying is within the law. So it is not like a maths problem you can't just say 2+2=4, it's kind of, ok what are the issues here that we need to consider? So that is what makes it quite challenging because there is no definitive answer.

What are the worst bits about your job?

The part of that I liked the look of is that everything changes but that can be a bit annoying at times, when the Budget happens, they just completely change the tax rules, for example the capital gains tax they changed very recently and also you just spend your time chasing clients with things and that gets a bit annoying.

What has been your greatest achievement?

The one thing that I am quite proud of is I got a prize in my exams so that was quite an achievement and also when you have been working on a project and the project you have been working on is mentioned in the press so you can actually see the actual outcome of what you have been working on.

Any regrets?

I must admit I don’t think there is anything specifically that I would have done differently, the thing I am glad that I did is take a year out from university to actually take some time out and not do exams for a year, because three years of exams is quite along time, so it is nice to have that break.  I did work but I wasn’t actually studying at the time I think that really benefited me because I was ready to get back into the study again.

What is the pay like and are there any perks?

The pay is pretty good, once you are qualified.  Obviously you start on pretty good wage but then once you qualify it is far, far better and it is definitely comparable to other industries.  We have good summer parties and Christmas parties and things like that and then we have a benefits package, which is a certain proportion of your pay you can then put towards various different health insurance and things like that.

How long is a working day and do you have to work out of hours?

Our standard working day is 9.30 to 5.30 but there will be times, such as when you are working on advisory projects, when you have to be more available than that and it is a client servicing job, you have to deliver things when you have said you would deliver them so it might lead to longer hours.  But generally I have never had to speak to clients on the weekend or anything like that.

Is there much in the way of travel?

Most of our time is spent in the office but depending on where your clients are, for example, some clients have offices in Guernsey, so people go over to Guernsey or somebody went to Dubai recently.  Depending on what your clients are doing, where they are and where the meetings need to be then there is potential for travel but we are predominantly based in office.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

It is really dependable on what type of tax you want to do and what type of clients you want to work.  As a general rule the larger the clients you want, and particularly corporate, you will want to be in London to be honest, or at least a large city.  If it is more personal side then it could be anywhere.

What is the working environment like?

As regards to the working environment we have just moved to a new office, so that is very nice as far as the building is concerned.  You get a good range of people but also you are going to get a lot of people of your age because you are going to join with an intake and therefore it means meeting other people.

If you are going to meet a client the general rule is that you are going to wear a suit but within the office provided you don’t have any meetings or anything, it is business casual, which is obviously smarter than casual than you would normally wear but not necessarily as suit.

How did you get into your job?

I applied to the general BDO graduate scheme.  I studied economics but there is no pre-requisite about what degree you are doing, some people study accountancy but you really don’t have to and then it is just the online application form.  Then you go through, if you are successful with that, to the first interview. If you are successful with that you have got an assessment day, which involves various group exercises, an interview with the partner and if you are successful with that, obviously you get a job offer.

What are the entry requirements?

You have to have GCSE maths and English, you have to have a 2:1 in a subject, there is no specific subject and you have to have a certain number of UCAS points which I think work out to two B’s and a C.

Can you get your tax qualifications in industry?

It is certainly possible to get the qualifications in the industry, for example some banks offer chartered accountancy, however, I personally think it is good to train at an accountancy firm because as regards to the study leave it is far more driven towards getting people qualified and I think you get far more time to make sure you pass the exams.  Where as if you are working for a bank and are working longer hours then it is difficult to fit in the study time as well.  To them it is kind of an additional thing, where as in an accountancy firm they are actually driven towards you actually obtaining your qualification.

What are the key skills required for your job?

I think there are a number of skills you have to obviously be numerical, but that is not the only thing, it is not just that, you have to have good people skills, good communication skills.  Within tax we obviously do a lot of report writing so written skills are quite useful.  Time management, because you are going to have a lot of conflicting priorities.  With tax you have a lot of things going on at the same time, for example you are tending to work on one client at one particular time so it is not quite the same thing, whereas in tax you are working on numerous different clients and you have a portfolio of clients and therefore you have to keep all of them happy and do the various different things that you need to do and prioritise. 

Within tax there are different types of partners, there are those that are very driven, their main role is to think up schemes and get around tax problems. Then you have got the more managerial side, everybody can do it to an extent but it takes a certain academics and intelligence to be able to do that.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

I think work experience is a good thing if at all possible, we have just introduced a summer placement scheme and if you can get into something like that then it is a good idea because it’s a great thing you get to find out if you actually want to do it and we get to find out if we like you as well so it is useful. 

I think the main thing is doing a bit of research and not just treating the firm you are applying to as a general accountancy firm, try and find what makes them different.  The other thing I would say is if, for example, you are applying for tax, is what happened in the Budget, try and find out on the website there are going to be various different things.  If you start talking tax to a Tax Manager, they love it and it is a really good way of impressing them.

Do you have to apply to a specific department?

When I applied I specifically applied for tax but it doesn’t mean that you have to do that.  Generally if you are not sure what you want to do, most people go for audit first.  There are a lot of people who trained for three years in audit, then decided it wasn’t for them and they transferred to, say tax, or one of the other specialists such as business recovery or corporate finance or something like that.  

Interviewer: Why did you decide to apply straight for tax?

Generally people that apply for audit are those that don’t know what they want to do, they want the qualification, they want the job, then see what happens. I had spoken to people in the industry, I guess, I had spoken to auditors previously and realised that it wasn’t what I wanted to do, I wanted something a bit more challenging and I knew that I quite liked the idea of tax.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

In tax there are two main qualifications that you can do, one is the ACA, which is the same qualification as the auditors do, you predominantly do that if you work in corporate tax.  The other qualification is the CTA, the Chartered Tax Advisor qualification and you can do that if you are in corporate tax or personal or trusts.  It is the same structure as the audit so you have got three years of actual study for the exams.  During that time you are what is known as a trainee, when you qualify you then become a senior, you then have a minimum of a year before you become a supervisor and assistant manager.  You have then got at least a year or a year and a half before your become a manager and then at various different levels senior manager, director, potentially principal and then partner.  There are various different levels of senior manager and manager but generally you can move up every year minimum so you could do it in about ten years to partner.

Where do you see the industry going?

I think the main thing at the moment is that it is becoming far more international.  The various offices are trying to become far more of an international network rather just individual offices.  As regards to hotspots, in tax, the capital gains regime has moved an awful lot recently and the change in the corporation tax rate but that hasn’t happened for a few years as well.  I can’t think of anything specifically to be honest.

Is there scope for movement during or after this career?

As regards changing departments in accountancy, it depends which qualification you have.  An ACA gives you a far more scope for going into corporation tax or business recovery or something like that.  The CTA is a tax qualification so you are more moulded towards tax but it doesn’t mean that you can't move anywhere.  A lot of large companies, particularly the FTSE 100 have large tax teams, internal tax teams, which you could move to.  There is also a great deal of scope for secondments, whether that is internally or perhaps externally, we do a few secondments to various different companies now, and also abroad as well.  People have come back from New York recently and various other places.

As regards to having a career break, it is really dependent on what you are doing.  Obviously tax you have to keep up to date, people do have children and come back, it is definitely possible.  They do encourage secondments, they do like the idea of you having experience elsewhere particularly if you are wanting to stay with the firm.

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

We have various magazines such as Taxation, but I think that is quite a specialist thing for graduates to be reading.  I would definitely say have a look on the Institute websites, whether that is the Chartered Accountant England and Wales, or Chartered Institute of Taxation website.  Find out about the actual qualification.  The other thing to do is, and you can find a lot from company websites as well.

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

That is a bit of a funny question, I would say physiotherapy, I am not sure why.