Tax vs. Audit Grad Position

Kehoejck

Hey guys,

I just wanted to get some feedback on everyone's thoughts in regard to tax vs. audit. I have had some experience in both of these areas.

I have heard that choosing somewhat limits your choices in the future and that audit is more general and therefore greater career choice later on. Would one then be better off maybe pursuing audit but doing the tax exams while there?

I would love to hear everyone's opinions on the subject.

Tom

Kehoejck

Anyone have any help/advice? Does anyone also have any experiences in regional office vs. Dublin? Would you get better experience in a smaller office or is training in Dublin better?

Paddy001

Where are you from yourself Tom? Have you done any degrees in this area or what stage are you at?

Kehoejck

Paddy001 wrote: »

Where are you from yourself Tom? Have you done any degrees in this area or what stage are you at?

Based here in South East - Waterford. Currently doing a Accounting Degree, heading into final year.

Paddy001

Kehoejck wrote: »

Based here in South East - Waterford. Currently doing a Accounting Degree, heading into final year.

Where are you doing your degree?

jonnybravo

Kehoejck wrote: »

Hey guys,

I just wanted to get some feedback on everyone's thoughts in regard to tax vs. audit. I have had some experience in both of these areas.

I have heard that choosing somewhat limits your choices in the future and that audit is more general and therefore greater career choice later on. Would one then be better off maybe pursuing audit but doing the tax exams while there?

I would love to hear everyone's opinions on the subject.

Tom

Hi Tom,

I qualified in audit and in my opinion its the best way to go unless your fully sure that tax is the career you want to persue. If you go into Tax you still have to do the ACA exams (in pwc anyways) as well as the tax exams but it would be very hard I think to move from tax into a more general accounting role. Whereas I know one or two people in pwc that qualified in audit and moved into tax after their 3 year contract.

In relation to doing tax exams during working in audit some people do this but you would need to have to do your masters to be able to qualify in both before the end of your contract. Year one you'd do your first set of tax exams; then in second year you'd do your ACA finals and in the third year you'd do your finals in Tax. Tax exams are fairly hard especially when you don't have experience in tax.

Kehoejck

jonnybravo wrote: »

Hi Tom,

I qualified in audit and in my opinion its the best way to go unless your fully sure that tax is the career you want to persue. If you go into Tax you still have to do the ACA exams (in pwc anyways) as well as the tax exams but it would be very hard I think to move from tax into a more general accounting role. Whereas I know one or two people in pwc that qualified in audit and moved into tax after their 3 year contract.

In relation to doing tax exams during working in audit some people do this but you would need to have to do your masters to be able to qualify in both before the end of your contract. Year one you'd do your first set of tax exams; then in second year you'd do your ACA finals and in the third year you'd do your finals in Tax. Tax exams are fairly hard especially when you don't have experience in tax.

That's great, really appreciate the advice. I couldent be certain that I want to focus my future on tax so I think Audit is the best bet for me therefore.

Would it be best to do it in a regional office or would dublin be better experience? I was thinking that maybe in a smaller regional office one could get exposure to a wide variety of clients while in Dublin you could be put in FS for example, which would not be ideal for me anyway. Or would in fact it be a disadvantage to work in a regional office do you think? Just a thought, would appreciate some advice regarding this.

Regional office would be handy too in terms of location but I want to make the best decision for my future career and therefore if it involved moving to Dublin so be it.

jonnybravo

Kehoejck wrote: »

That's great, really appreciate the advice. I couldent be certain that I want to focus my future on tax so I think Audit is the best bet for me therefore.

Would it be best to do it in a regional office or would dublin be better experience? I was thinking that maybe in a smaller regional office one could get exposure to a wide variety of clients while in Dublin you could be put in FS for example, which would not be ideal for me anyway. Or would in fact it be a disadvantage to work in a regional office do you think? Just a thought, would appreciate some advice regarding this.

Regional office would be handy too in terms of location but I want to make the best decision for my future career and therefore if it involved moving to Dublin so be it.

I worked in Dublin in pwc in the industry side of audit so I was lucky in that I got good experience in alot of different companies. If you go into the FS / banking side of audit you can get pretty specialised but some people are interested in that and there are a lot of jobs in that area especially at the moment.

I'm not sure about what type of split they have in the regional offices but I do know that it is harder to get into the regional offices (very few places every year) and some of the regional offices would have a lot of FS work (e.g. Kilkenny due to a large state street office there).

Kehoejck

jonnybravo wrote: »

I worked in Dublin in pwc in the industry side of audit so I was lucky in that I got good experience in alot of different companies. If you go into the FS / banking side of audit you can get pretty specialised but some people are interested in that and there are a lot of jobs in that area especially at the moment.

I'm not sure about what type of split they have in the regional offices but I do know that it is harder to get into the regional offices (very few places every year) and some of the regional offices would have a lot of FS work (e.g. Kilkenny due to a large state street office there).

Thanks again, really useful. Just in regard to future career, what prospects would someone have coming out of audit? What route would most people follow?

jonnybravo

Kehoejck wrote: »

Thanks again, really useful. Just in regard to future career, what prospects would someone have coming out of audit? What route would most people follow?

Most people would move into a company and work at the other side of audit; that is in a Financial Accountant / Group Accountant type role but there are alot of other types of roles available once you are qualified. At the moment there are a lot of internal audit roles and I know a good few people that have moved into these type roles. Other roles would be like Financial Anaylst or some people who like audit stay in practice.

Kehoejck

jonnybravo wrote: »

Most people would move into a company and work at the other side of audit; that is in a Financial Accountant / Group Accountant type role but there are alot of other types of roles available once you are qualified. At the moment there are a lot of internal audit roles and I know a good few people that have moved into these type roles. Other roles would be like Financial Anaylst or some people who like audit stay in practice.

Thanks, sounds like they are good few opportunites alright. I suppose it's not the most interesting of jobs when you start from the bottom but do your 3/3.5 years and it is worth it. Good training, experience that sets you up well for future?

Does audit get any more interesting then at a higher level, for example manager etc. Would many consider staying on within Practice?

jonnybravo

Kehoejck wrote: »

Thanks, sounds like they are good few opportunites alright. I suppose it's not the most interesting of jobs when you start from the bottom but do your 3/3.5 years and it is worth it. Good training, experience that sets you up well for future?

Does audit get any more interesting then at a higher level, for example manager etc. Would many consider staying on within Practice?

Nah I'd have no interest in staying within practice (the same as about 95% of people). I viewed my time in audit as something to get my qualification and to get as much experience in different icompanies as possible. In my opinion you don't gain anything extra by staying longer than 3/3.5 yrs - for the most part you'll be doing the same in your last year of your contract as you will be in the following year and then management is just reviewing the same work you would have done during your contract with a bit more of client engagement and people management but in my opinion not worth staying for unless you are going to stay in practice long term.

Just to add some people do stay in audit firms but move into other areas such as tax and advisory. Advisory would be a lot of project work like NAMA work or acquisition proposals etc etc.

Kehoejck

jonnybravo wrote: »

Nah I'd have no interest in staying within practice (the same as about 95% of people). I viewed my time in audit as something to get my qualification and to get as much experience in different icompanies as possible. In my opinion you don't gain anything extra by staying longer than 3/3.5 yrs - for the most part you'll be doing the same in your last year of your contract as you will be in the following year and then management is just reviewing the same work you would have done during your contract with a bit more of client engagement and people management but in my opinion not worth staying for unless you are going to stay in practice long term.

Just to add some people do stay in audit firms but move into other areas such as tax and advisory. Advisory would be a lot of project work like NAMA work or acquisition proposals etc etc.

Thanks. Would you think it would be a wise decision to possibly study tax exams while in audit? I would choose not to do tax as I couldn't be 100% sure its what I wanted to do long-term, so wouldn't doing them keep my options open a bit more? Best of both worlds - still have good broad accounting experience with training contract in audit and tax qualifications?

jonnybravo

Kehoejck wrote: »

Thanks. Would you think it would be a wise decision to possibly study tax exams while in audit? I would choose not to do tax as I couldn't be 100% sure its what I wanted to do long-term, so wouldn't doing them keep my options open a bit more? Best of both worlds - still have good broad accounting experience with training contract in audit and tax qualifications?

In my opinion there is no point doing them unless you are sure that is what you want to go into. Couple of reasons for this. Firstly it costs a fair bit to do your exams (and then you'll have your annual membership fee if you join ITI). Tax legislation changes so much that once you qualify and if you don't operate in the area then your qualification would be out of date. Unless you have a Masters then I assume you wont be able to qualify within your contract as you would have two sets of accounting exams (CAP 2s and FAEs) and two sets of Tax exams and I think that is alot of exams to be doing. Just my opinion though - you'd want to look into your options more if you are serious about doing both.