ACA-CTA qualification?

I did aca and was in the tax department at the time. (Bar 20 weeks in audit)
Then moved into internal audit after, then group reporting.
If I had stayed I’d have been pigeon holed. But I did enjoy the tax.

Hi,

Just seen your post. Before you continue reading just wanted to mention that I've not worked in tax but I'm just going off based on other finance professionals I have spoken too.

So, based on what I know, Tax is a niche area, so it's less transferable than say audit.
I remember speaking to a senior finance person in my company about advice on my career, and they said, if you want a career in Tax or Treasury, then you need to be in there early, anything else outside of that you can decide later on which area of finance you want to work. Reason for this is because Tax and Treasury are very technical areas, so the earlier the better.

I also spoke to a lady that was a tax manager about her role and what she wanted to do going forward. She doesn't have a CTA but has an ACA and she works in tax. Working in tax for around 6 years from her perspective she personally felt it was too late to get out. I guess what she means is, she may have to move down a couple grades and then build herself back up (i.e take a pay cut).

Based on those two examples and speaking to various other people, it is likely to mean the longer you stay in tax the harder it is to move out of it. You will of course have a lot of transferable skills but tax as whole is a different world. In your ACA the most advanced tax paper you do is a paper called Business Planning and Tax, which is tough paper but I don't think it's as hard as some of the CTA papers (because CTA is aimed at specialist tax professionals, where as ACA is to give student chartered accountants a solid grounding in tax). You may not have to do this paper in your ACA-CTA qualification but maybe check ?

I have heard that Big 4 trainees have an opportunity to move into different departments based on if you are performing well and how well you network, this could therefore be a way to move out of tax if you don't enjoy it ? (I've never worked in Big 4 so I'm not too sure how this works). However given you are doing ACA/CTA they may not be keen on you moving into non-tax roles, given they have invested in you, to train you as a Tax professional.

With all that said, there must be Big 4 trainees in the past who have been on the ACA-CTA programme but then felt they don't want to continue in tax. I'm sure Big 4 acknowledge this and may let you transfer. My advice would therefore be try speak to anyone in Big 4 you may know to find out for you ? Or hopefully a current Big 4 trainee responds below.

Did you get a pay cut when you transferred? Were you at the big 4?
If I do the CTA ACA joint qualification will this restrict me from moving?

I was big 6( I am old) then moved into industry after qualifying.
I’d take aca if you can, then tax exams later if you want.

Thanks for replying.The CTA pass rate is around 40% for some modulesDoes this make this qualification much harder?I don’t know anyone in the big 4, but hopefully someone replies.Thanks

will social distancing due to the virus make it hard to network