Experiences of the CTA qualification

Hello all, so thankful to see a forum for CTA!
I have a question regarding the E-Assessments? Is it possible to prepare for these with Kaplan or BPP distance learning only? or should i opt for Tolley classroom and revision course.
I don't want to underestimate them, but am thinking i should be ok since it is multiple choice and 1 hour each? I intend to sit the Awareness paper and the E-assessments at the same sitting in Nov 2012, then IND and IHT together in May 2013 (I am exempt from the Application & Interaction paper).
Any responses are welcome!
Cheers

Have my first exam in November but don`t have any material to read except the past questions and answers. Can anyone help me with materials as I live in Sierra Leone.

500 - 600 hours is realistic the pass rate for the CTA is currently 33% imagine the ACA and times it by about 40 times and that is generally how difficult it is. But it is also highly valued because of the above.

Be prepared to put the work in, but generally firms are more lenient with the CTA in terms of pass and fails as they recognise its difficulty!

Hi guys anyone preparing for CTA Nov 2021?
I am a bit straggling with the choice of modules for awareness. Is OMB difficult? I am trying to find out what is the “easier” thanks for the Amy advise. I am going to go with Tolley preparation and choose Corporate Tax, Taxation of Unicorporated Business and VAT but seems Tolley doesn’t provide preparation for VAT..

Hi Nazym

What you find ‘difficult’ will probably depend on your background/professional experience. All of the CTA exams (with the exception of awareness as that it quite an enjoyable paper) are difficult but if you deal with corporate tax everyday for example, you’d probably find TOMC easier than you would find IHT.

When choosing the papers, I’d think about 2 things. First, your practical experience and what is currently most familiar to you, and secondly, your career aspirations.

The general practice route is to do Individuals and OMB as your Advanced Technical papers, which would leave your Awareness topics to be IHT, VAT & Stamp Taxes, Corporation Tax.

The Awareness topics are the ones you don’t do at Advanced Technical level, so if you chose to do TOMC rather than Individuals, Personal Tax would replace Corporation Tax as your Awareness topic. If you chose to do Unincorporated Businesses at Awareness, you may not be able to do OMB at AT.

It’s preferable to sit your final Advanced Technical paper with the APS paper of the same type as there is a lot of cross over in syllabus. I took OMB AT in the same sitting as OMB APS. I understand from my tutors that the OMB APS tends to be a little bit more friendly than the Individuals one.

I can definitely recommend the Tolley’s study materials and tutors - they are excellent.

Hi, Don Duck
Thank you very much for a such open and detailed answer.
I have zero experience in tax since I am a lawyer with LLM from Exeter uni.
I see myself more in corporate tax as it a bit closer to the law. For instance taxation of M&A transactions or just international taxation. I used to work in EY in my country, advisory team, so, I drafted legal advices in the way, I think, the exam is required. But not sure... I will do the same as you: take OMB AT at the same time as OMB APS. Did you pass the exam ?
I just started my journey so still more information to learn.

I sat OMB AT and APS together in November 2020 and passed both papers. They were my final written exams for CTA.

Originally I had intended to sit AT OMB in May and the APS paper in Nov as I hadn’t completed my CBEs and generally you need to complete those before sitting your final written papers. Also May and November are examined on the same Finance Act, so if you go from Nov to the following May there’s a chance some rules might change. As it happened, my May exam was cancelled and they relaxed the rules about passing your CBEs for the November sitting as the test centres were closed for large periods of 2020 so I took the opportunity to do them both together. As I say, there is a lot of crossover as the APS is basically the same syllabus as AT - the only difference is the format of the exams and that APS expects you to have a broad awareness knowledge of all the other topics.

The Awareness topics and proposed AT exams you have identified would work as a route to CTA. I assume the Taxation of Large Companies and Groups at APS corresponds to the TOMC AT paper.

One word of caution... Do not underestimate the difficulty of the CTA exams, especially if you don’t have any experience in tax. I’m not trying to scare you off but they are tough and the pass rate per paper is generally around the 40% mark. The exams are definitely achievable, but you need to have strong core knowledge and good exam technique.

Depending on your previous exposure to tax, how supportive your employer is, and your appetite for studying, the ATT qualification provides an excellent grounding for studying CTA if CTA straight off the bat sounds daunting.

I would definitely recommend getting the study courses as these are a huge help. I studied with Tolley’s, but I’m sure BPP and Kaplan will be just as good.

Whatever you choose to do, good luck with it. You’ll have days where it’s tough going and you’ll feel overwhelmed by the content, but that makes the highs of passing the papers all the more enjoyable.

Remember... Nothing worth doing is easy!

Hi NazymI did the MSc with LPC so came into CTA the same route as you. I am doing Advanced tech OMB & TOMC & TOMC for APS. My awareness modules were VAT, Indv & IHT.

CTA is similar to your solicitor exams. Although OMB is quite broad.

Law comes more naturally to me than tax (particularly the computational aspects) so I have to put more work in than my solicitor exams but its definitely do-able. Just dont underestimate it.

Good luck!