General Comments

Too many sitters did not have sufficient,precise knowledge of the tax rules within the syllabus,said the examiner.

Time management is also poor with weaker students.There are a significant number of candidates who produce comprehensive answers to two or three questions but then appeared to run out of time without being able to have a reasonable attempt at their fourth question.

Q1

Covered a variety of corporate tax issues facing different members of a group of companies.The examiner admits this was‘quite a challenging question’。Those who did well used subheadings taken from the issues ion the manager’s email!That’s a tip to use in the future right there.The question looked at the sale of shares,group relief for a trading loss,and rollover relief within a group.The final part of the question was around the VAT implications of using the annual accounting scheme and expenditure incurred on promotional activities.

Q2

This question looked at various income tax and CGT issues for an individual,IHT planning relating to a charitable gift and ethical issues relating to accepting a new client who is related to existing clients.

Q3

This question concerned aspects of corporation tax and income tax for an employee.There was some tax relief for R&D,corporation tax return filing dates in relation to a long period,and acquisition of shares by an employee.

Q4

This question looked at an unincorporated business,which was about to change its accounting date,and which was anticipating a trading loss in a future period.

Q5

Here candidates had to tackle the CGT and IHT implications of the gift of a farm and,as a spate part,the effect of recent legislation changes on investment decisions.