Commerce & industry v. practice
You have just qualified and after all the hard slog, you now find yourself faced with a career-making choice between the bright lights of commerce and industry and the path to partnership in public practice.
Commerce & industry
What's the work like?
As a tax accountant working in an in-house tax function you can expect to be doing UK/International group compliance and planning work, as well as gaining experience of 'ad hoc' projects. Group compliance work normally involves reviewing the tax computations prepared by the finance function, and submitting and agreeing the same with HM Inspector of Taxes.
Group planning work can include the development and implementation of group-wide transfer pricing, share and employee remuneration schemes, as well as minimising tax liabilities by maximising loss and group relief. 'Ad hoc' project work can range from assisting with group reorganisations to working on business start-ups and acquisitions.
Career paths
As a newly qualified tax professional the opportunities are boundless. As your career progresses, you can expect a considerable increase in responsibility and exposure to international and advisory issues.
This will take one of two main forms: managing a team of people undertaking group tax issues or a portfolio of challenging projects and assignments. The banking sector and some large plcs offer exposure to tax-driven transactional and product work, where the work is fast moving and rewarding.
There are three main types of in-house tax function where you will find career opportunities for newly qualified CTAs, ATTs and ACAs.
Large tax functions
Typically these tax departments are based in the larger Plc groups and financial institutions and will number between 8-50 tax professionals. Departments are likely to be split along tax disciplines, with the direct tax function being divided along UK and international or group compliance and advisory lines.
An entrant at the newly qualified level can expect to spend 1-2 years' on compliance before progressing to a planning and advisory-based role. In some of the larger departments and investment banks, direct entrant advisory roles do exist.
Medium-sized functions
Such tax functions normally contain between 3-8 professional staff and entrant level opportunities are usually in group compliance and planning. If you choose your industry sector and company well you can quickly gain exposure to challenging project and advisory work and a greater degree of autonomy. This is particularly true of fast growing industry sectors, groups expanding overseas and organisations that outsource compliance work.
Small tax functions
With this size tax function, typically up to three tax staff, career opportunities offer considerable exposure to group compliance issues and are generally UK focused.
Public practice
Type of work
There is a vast amount of choice available in the public practice tax market, especially for newly qualified ATTs, CTAs and ACAs. There has been a constant upsurge in the number of positions within mainstream personal or corporate tax, as well as huge growth in specialisms such as VAT, expatriate tax, international tax and employee issues.
The senior practice market has seen significant growth during recent years. Teams are now offering advice of the highest calibre by recruiting numerous managers, senior managers, directors and partners (recruitment can be at salaried partner or equity partner level). Due to this demand, salaries have become comparable with commerce and industry on an ever-increasing basis to enable firms to retain good quality staff.
Career paths
For those senior tax specialists who enjoy a variety of work, a smaller firm will allow you to remain generalist within your role. You will enjoy working on 'ad hoc' projects and could end up mixing international work or VAT with any other taxes.
Those with specialist skill sets will find that it tends to be larger practices offering technically challenging positions. It is therefore important to consider whether or not you want to specialist as early as possible. Firms will always need top quality experts for maintaining business and maintaining client relationships by delivering the highest quality of service.
Range of functions
Within your practice role, the variety of work can range from corporate to personal tax, tax investigations, remuneration planning, trusts, expatriate tax, VAT, mixed tax, PAYE/ NIC, international tax and transfer pricing.
For instance, working in corporate tax you could be advising a client on the tax implications of future actions, M&A, sales and transfers of shares, overseas projects sale of companies and assets etc.
Dealing with the Inland Revenue and Custom and Excise could become part of your role as you may make appeals to them on behalf of your clients. Performance-related bonuses are becoming increasingly prevalent; however, if you are successful at bringing in new clients there is no reason why that bonus would not increase year on year.
