TC & BPT Exams in June 2017

Hi,

I'm sitting these exams in June 2017.

By the time I finish the courses (18th April), I'll have seven weeks to prepare. Is this long enough?

Also, in terms of difficulty, are these more difficult than AA/FAR? I sat those and passed them in December having started the courses in October.

I don't work in tax but I'm a bit worried as although calculations are simple, it seems that you need time to bed things in, computations etc.

Any advice is appreciated, particularly for BPT which I've heard can be tough

Reply 1

Kre

7 weeks after tuition to prepare? That's ample time.

People who don't work in tax tend to find TC harder than FAR (was the case for me), but they're about the same really. AA doesn't even compare.

BPT is the hardest professional paper by far. It's basically an advanced stage exam sitting in the professional level. A lot of people at my firm found it the hardest out of the 15.

Reply 2

zeldusone

Original post by Kre

Thanks for this. So by your reckoning I should on average spend 2.5-3 weeks mastering TC and 4-4.5 weeks on BPT? And I should have more than enough time if I use my evenings and weekends efficiently?

Thanks for your help, it's appreciated

Reply 3

Kre

Original post by zeldusone

It's hard to say how you should split your time, it depends on each person and how difficult they find the exams.

Your TC knowledge will flow into BPT, so you've got to have a good grasp of the TC content before tackling BPT. TC is all knowledge pretty much, and number crunching. BPT is more about giving tax advice, and it's how you apply the stuff you know.

I did FAR/AA/TC and BPT/BS/FM in two sittings in about 7-8 weeks and had ample time. You'll be fine.

Reply 4

jtx045

I'm sitting BPT in June too, and even though I work in Tax I find it much harder than FAR.

It's much more 'applied' knowledge, aka in FAR you'd be given some statements to adjust or asked to explain what the accounting treatment of 'x' was, you were pointed in the direction and knew exactly what you had to do.

With BPT it's more a case of you have to work out for yourself what you need to do, it's like building IKEA furniture but they've taken away the instructions. You need to be able to look at the scenario and be able to tell what Taxes are going to be relevant, know exactly what things you need to talk about etc, so it's very easy to go completely off-tangent and end up getting the wrong end of the stick and talk about something irrelevant.

I'm working through the Question Bank much more with this one than with previous ones for that reason, trying to really get to know every question in there to see exactly what will come up. There is only really a certain number of scenarios they can give you. Aka, partnership being bought out by a company (you're going to have huge CGT on Goodwill, will be able to get IR unless it's a close-company, cash consideration won't qualify but will for ER, etc), so if you can get to know all these 'scenarios' well then you'll be fine (is my thinking anyway!)

If you ever want to ask anything about content/topic, let me know! Annoyingly no one else in my firm is taking this exam at this sitting so I'm riding solo for this one 😭

TC & BPT Exams in June 2017

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you