Career change into tax

LUCKY8

I am thinking of completely changing my career and am interested in becoming a tax technician or a payroll technician, currently have a career as in supermarket management but not sure if this is a safe bet for the future. Would I be better off staying were I am and developing further doing some hr course etc or should I look at getting qualified in a profession so that i will have more options. I'm in my thirties so at this stage would I be mad to change career? Can anyone tell me what the prospects are like for tax professionals at the moment.

censuspro

You could do the tax technician course via homestudy and continue in your job. Most people who do professional exams either do them part time or homestudy.

The tax technician and payroll course are probably the two most practical courses that you could do. Most of the every day queries that you would deal with if you are working in tax are contained in those two courses.

Bear in mind that you have great work experience behind you by working in retail. It's not neccessarily tax experience but it's great commercial experience. Working in a supermarket, especially in management, gives you experience in dealing with and managing staff, customers and products. 99% of accountants would not have the same level of commercial experience that you have.

djk1000

I was somewhere north of 30 when I completely changed career to accounting. Trainee wages were and still are a shock to the system, but it was definitely worth it.

The fact that I was a bit older and had commercial experience has really stood to me too.

In the current environment, it's probably wise to keep the current job and study part time, see if you like it and then start firing out the CV's

ari101

The experience will put you head and shoulders above the younger competition so don't worry.

Do start part time or home study in the area you want to work to prove your desire to change career path and start applying once you've started the course.

I'm not over the 30 mark yet but am approx 3-4 years older than my trainee colleagues in the new job I've just started, I don't have a business degree but going out on my own, finding a support role in a similar area, paying for my first round of exams and getting good results really stood to me and got me a really good job (good careerwise not financially - trainee positions are a big paycut!)

Good luck!

Jim2007

LUCKY8 wrote: »

I am thinking of completely changing my career and am interested in becoming a tax technician or a payroll technician, currently have a career as in supermarket management but not sure if this is a safe bet for the future. Would I be better off staying were I am and developing further doing some hr course etc or should I look at getting qualified in a profession so that i will have more options. I'm in my thirties so at this stage would I be mad to change career? Can anyone tell me what the prospects are like for tax professionals at the moment.

Since you are going to have to put a lot of effort into this, I would suggest that you consider following one of the Accounting Technician qualifications rather than the two you are proposing, either the one supported by the ACCA or the one supported by ICAI would give you broader set of skills and much more flexibility in your future career.

As an accounting technician you will have a skill set that allows you to work in many different areas of accounting and finance, where as taxation and payroll are at best specializations and thus restrict the roles open to you.

Good luck with that,

Jim