Why Choose a Career in Tax?
“I wanted to share some insights from my career and give you a bird’s eye view of the industry to help you decide whether it might be the right career for you.”
Should I work in tax?
If you’re reading this I suspect there may be one or two reasons. Perhaps you have been working in the world of audit, accounting or finance but really enjoyed studying tax as part of your professional qualifications. Or perhaps you are just curious about what your colleagues actually do in the tax department all day.
I wanted to share some insights from my career and give you a bird’s eye view of the industry to give you a flavour of whether a career in tax could be one worth exploring further.
How did you get into tax?
It may surprise you to hear that I didn’t dream of being a tax advisor as a young girl. It was during my first year of university I started to look into potential internships as a way to give me some idea of what the world of work might look like. I saw that a lot of the banks and large accounting firms offered internships in London so started my search there. By the time I’d been through four assessment centres the two offers I received were from PwC and the (as it was then) FSA.
On reflection, I decided that the tax internship at PwC was the choice I should make. I liked the idea of a role that should be ‘recession-proof’ – people will always need tax advice, right? This proved very handy when the financial crash happened a couple of years later! I also decided to choose tax over audit because, although I understood relatively little of either, I preferred the idea of being in an office five days a week over the uncertainty that might come with being ‘sent away’ on an audit.
So that was that, I was in tax and that’s where I spent the majority of the next 18 years of my life. First in corporate tax, a splash of personal tax followed by over a decade of VAT (mostly in practice with two client secondments thrown in).
Who works in tax?
Most people who work in tax have some sort of accountancy or tax qualification to their name. For example they may hold: ACCA, ACA, ATT or CTA. Generally speaking they are a lovely bunch.
Broadly speaking there are two ‘types’ of commercial roles that tax people have traditionally taken on (although with technology the role of the tax advisor continues to evolve).
Some people work in an in-house tax department. That is, they work as a tax specialist within the finance department of a business. Depending on the size of the tax team they may be the only tax person, dealing with all taxes that affect the business, or there may be a team of people who each specialise in a different tax area. For example, corporate tax, payroll, operational or indirect taxes.
Some people work in practice. This is where there are teams of tax professionals working together and providing advice on a consulting basis to external clients. Generally speaking larger firms will have more specialist teams whereas smaller firms will have consultants with broader tax knowledge. That means even from early on in your career, particularly at a large firm, you may be assigned to an industry and/or specific tax niche. I was in a Financial Services VAT team for example. That meant I helped Financial Servies businesses with their VAT compliance and questions.
What do tax people do?
Broadly speaking there are two ‘types’ of tax work. These can be summarised as advisory and compliance.
Advisory: This involves using research techniques (e.g. understanding of case law, legislation and HMRC guidance) to answer specific questions or advise on specific transactions or projects.
If you work in-house you might provide advice to the finance team and/or advise other areas of the business on the potential implications of their work and field their questions.
If you work in practice you might answer ad-hoc queries from clients and/or advise on the tax implications for specific transactions or projects they undertake. You might also work with other business teams, e.g. consulting, on joint projects. This might occur, for example, when new IT systems are being implemented for a client.
Compliance: This is focussed on ensuring reporting requirements are met. For example, the preparation and submission of tax returns.
If you work in-house you may be responsible for ensuring that all the relevant filing deadlines are met: this could be focussed on UK only obligations, those in Europe or even wider.
If you work in practice then you help clients meet their compliance obligations either by preparing their calculations and returns, or by reviewing those that they have prepared and providing guidance.
There is also potentially an additional component if the firm you work in also conducts audits. Often the audit teams would seek specialist input to help them understand the tax figures in the accounts. As such, there was often the opportunity to be involved in tax audits where a client was audited by the assurance team (subject of course to independence requirements).
What is the best area of tax to work in?
This is a really good question and, to give a tax style answer, it really depends.
Things you might want to think about when choosing the area of tax to work in include:
What type of clients you would like to work with (e.g. businesses or individuals)
The mix of advisory and compliance work you would like to have.
The timing of compliance cycles and tax return deadlines.
If you really love the intricacies of case law and follow HMRC updates closely, there may be the option to take on a non-client facing role in a Knowledge and Innovation department and provide technical advice to client-facing teams if you are working in practice.
Why did I choose VAT? I find it makes ‘more sense’ to me. I love understanding the nuts and bolts of what actually happens in a business and how all the transaction flows come together. This level of understanding is crucial for determining the correct VAT treatment in a scenario.
How can I find out more?
The above is clearly a high level summary of the types of work you might be involved with as a tax professional. If I haven’t yet put you off pursuing a career in tax then you might want to think about the following:
Get in touch with the Chartered Institute of Taxation who have loads of great information on their website and, in my experience, the people who work there are lovely and happy to answer questions.
Talking to people in your firm, or wider network, who currently work in tax to see what they think about the profession and to give you an insight into their area of expertise and what their working day is really like.
If you are in a muti-disciplinary firm, seek out the for a secondment working for a spell in a tax team to see what every day, on the ground, experience is like. I would advise at least 6 months for this – to really get a taste for what it’s like. You then have the option to return to your ‘home team’ if it turns out that tax isn’t for you.
Seek advice from your line or people manager and discuss if there are any joint projects with tax teams that you could volunteer to be involved with. I once worked with someone who had found their love for VAT through doing liquidations work!
For impartial and independent advice, speak with a career coach or mentor who can help you to clarify your goals and guide you towards achieving them.
Nikki is a Chartered Tax Advisor and Chartered Accountant. She is a coach and mentor to those in the tax and accountancy professions. She also tutors ATT/CTA accounting and maths (for those who might need a little help if they haven't looked at fractions since school!). Find her on the Accountancy Hub platform under coaching and private tuition!
