TTPP 6: How to Build and Maintain Strong Tax Knowledge to Excel as a Tax Professional

17Aug 2020 by jackbonehill94
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Regardless of what area of tax you work in, it is undeniably important that you have strong knowledge for the area of tax you work in.

When it comes to building your tax knowledge, the end goal should not be to know the answer to every tax question that you could ever be asked without checking (that would be impossible given the amount of tax legislation!), but having a good foundation will mean you have a good gut feeling of what the answer will be and will allow you to spot potential risks before things turn ugly.  Tax research can then be undertaken as necessary to ratify the position, and the appropriate consideration given to any risks.

If you specialise in a certain area of tax (for me, that’s UK employment taxes!) the knowledge you’ll require will be less broad than someone who is in a mixed tax role, but it does mean that you need to know your area in-depth.

Building your tax knowledge may seem like an overwhelming task – given the vast volume of information – but like with anything, if you approach it in the right way, you’ll be able to build it quicker than you think.

Think what you will, but I personally take a lot of pride in my tax knowledge and have worked hard to build it.

It’s the area I focussed on improving the most initially.

I’m glad that I did as it definitely helped me build credibility with clients and colleagues early on. This has no doubt had a positive impact on my progression!

So, in this episode, I’m sharing with you the strategies and methods that I, myself, have and still use to build and maintain my tax knowledge, so that you can use these yourself.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re new to working in tax, have decided to swap specialism, or are more experienced and are looking for ways to bolster and maintain your knowledge – I think you’ll take away some useful points and ideas from this episode.

You’ll Learn:

  • About 7 ways that you can increase your tax knowledge

  • How to increase the learning experience to better build your knowledge when studying towards a tax qualification

  • How to turn a standard tax-research task into a knowledge building goldmine!

  • My recommended approach to reading tax news and tax magazines to build your tax knowledge

  • Why case law is such a rich source of information for building tax knowledge

  • About the steps of a consultation that bring about tax changes and how this can be used to get on top of the changes

  • That discussing and debating tax is a great way to improve your knowledge

Resources

Podcast

News

Case Law

ATT and CIOT