A Tax Accountant would deal with tax reporting and advising on relevant changes to legislation or tax issues that affect the business. In this case instead of having a portfolio of clients as you would in an accountancy firm you would be dealing with the group companies and your clients would be other people working within the business. In a bank or insurance group you might also provide some form of tax assistance to the bank’s clients.
Some of the things expected of you:
- Display technical understanding of tax reporting.
- Appropriately identify and communicate issues in reporting, notifying management when necessary.
- Review and process daily, weekly, and/or monthly reports per guidelines.
- Support external and internal clients
- Proactively maintain and document updates to departmental procedures
Salary & benefits
Tax Accountants can expect to earn anywhere between £30,000 and £75,000, with the average salary at just over £50,000 for the UK.
The standards benefits within the job are the ones you would associate with the financial industry, such as: pensions, life assurance, private healthcare and lifestyle benefits.
Working hours
As you’d imagine, the further you go up the ladder, the higher the responsibilities become and the more work you have to make sure is correct. Whilst most jobs stick to the standard five-day working week, long hours are common on occasion and during the busiest periods, a lot of hard work is necessary.
Entry
Trainee Tax Accountants are often taken on once they have already started their career, so perhaps a part qualified accountant (ACCA, ACA or ICAS), or someone who has some qualifications in other financial fields and wants to move into Tax. Some previous exposure to tax e.g. working experience in another tax role, written a degree dissertation on a tax subject, started the ATT qualification, would be preferential to firms, as well as a good level of knowledge of current UK tax rules.
Accreditations from the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) or the Association of Taxation Technicians (ATT) are key to successfully learning the ropes in the business, and the CTA qualifications that follow this also need to be passed.
The standard requirements for joining accounting firms is at least a degree to 2:1 standard, but this can really be in any discipline.
Training & progression
Training will be on-the-job, and you’ll learn directly alongside completing the qualifications. Some of the jobs you might be doing during this training period include:
- Preparation of financial information for management.
- Tax compliance and planning work.
- Assisting with the tax provision reporting process and the tax compliance process to include the submission of tax returns and tax payments to the relevant tax authorities.
- Assisting with the tax budgeting and planning processes.
- Liaising with finance teams, auditors, tax advisors and authorities.
Progression is swift once training has been completed, and moving up the career and wage ladder is common once you’re qualified!