tax consultant a good opportunity?

Chicke

Im a qualified as an accountant with 15 years of excellent accounting experience , training in practice and then working in financial services mostly.
I have been at home however for the last four years.
Im thinking now of training as a tax consultant(AITI) as my ideal job would be to work from home providing specialised advice working around family life.
I am very nervous of making the time and cost commitment to find out after two years I have an extra qualification with little chance of getting work
Has anyone trained as a tax consultant and got decent enough income from providing tax(and/or accounting advice)

Mr. Incognito

I work as a solicitor and make an okay living doing nixers but I have insurance and I have relevant experience.

Its a specialised area and people are experts in partiular fields.

But it is a niche area. Also, the exams are three years and HARD

KCTK

I think you may have a problem giving specailist advice if you do not have relevant experience in that particular field as Mr. Incognito has said. All well doing the exams (which are a step up from accountancy exams) but really no comparison to what you will experience in the real world.

I work in industry and there does seem to be alot of opportunities for people with tax qualifications going from amount of contact from recruitment agencies I get seeing if I am interested in changing jobs, but I'm guessing this is not really relevant to you from what I read in your OP as it appears you wish to work for yourself, from home, around your family life.

It definately is an interesting area to work in though (especially compared to accounting!!!)

Shane732

Chicke wrote: »

Im a qualified as an accountant with 15 years of excellent accounting experience , training in practice and then working in financial services mostly.
I have been at home however for the last four years.
Im thinking now of training as a tax consultant(AITI) as my ideal job would be to work from home providing specialised advice working around family life.
I am very nervous of making the time and cost commitment to find out after two years I have an extra qualification with little chance of getting work
Has anyone trained as a tax consultant and got decent enough income from providing tax(and/or accounting advice)

It certainly is a niche area, however the IMO the chance of being able to setup a one man band is pretty low due to the nature of the business and the fact that most companies use their accountancy firms to provide tax advice. Naturally there are specialist tax firms out there and they do very well but without having a wealth of experience you'll find it difficult to get enough business to make a decent living.

If I was to pick one particular area where it might be possible to setup a specialised firm within tax it would be VAT on property. If you could get in with a number of solicitors firms then you could make good money giving specialised VAT on property advice.

Other areas like expat tax would also be profitable but it would be very hard to get into the area.

Nixers can be profitable but it's general tax advice in some cases as opposed to specific tax areas.

You hear people saying that the tax exams are the toughest professional exams out there. I personally didn't find them overly difficult but then I was working in a specialised tax department getting a wide range of experience which made it much easier to manage the exams.