Hello all. Can anyone tell me what you learn in the AAT Business Tax module? Course content etc? Does it teach you enough to enable to do self assessment for clients?
AAT business tax covers corporation tax, capital allowances and self employment. It does not give you enough to provide self assessment. The actual calculation of tax is covered in personal tax.
To offer self assessment for clients you really need to do both personal and business tax modules.
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Nick
Nick Craggs FMAAT ACA AAT Distance Learning Manager
Good morning Nick, thank you for the reply. I really love this forum because you can get an answer to anything! I have done Personal Tax, so now I debating whether to do the Business Tax module or the ICB self assessment course or both!
I enquired about this the other day and I was advised to do both business and personal tax module in AAT level 4, I'm about to sign up to mine. How far are you through yours?
Hello Amanda, I completed my AAT studies a while ago but never did the Business Tax module as it was optional. Now I am an MIP I was considering whether to offer the service to clients. However, I did read that 1 in 4 tax self assessment returns are wrong so not really sure I want to go down that route.
Can I ask who you are booking aat business and personal tax through and how much it costs?
I'm trying to decide between that or the new IAB level 4 diploma in business tax that Frauke from the local bookkeeper offers at £245 for the business tax only.
I'm not bothered by taking the exams I just want to bring my knowledge up to date in addition to having read every HMRC guide available on the subject.
On a linked note, if you want to offer a tax service can I suggest a couple of books that everyone in our business should buy (and read) on an annual basis. Here are versions that you can look inside. First one if paper F6 (taxation) FA10 and the second in P6 (advanced taxation) FA09. You really need the FA11 versions but Amazon don't have look inside versions of those yet.
And yes, that really is best part of 1800 pages of tax guidance before you even go anywhere near the HMRC website! However, it's presented in a way that you are doing excercises throughout so you get sucked into the study and the information really gets ingrained.
Both books are written to the normal high standard of Kaplan texts.
kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Thanks for that Shamus.... I had a look. Wow! Makes you think doesn't it. Somehow I don't think having the ICB self assessment OR the AAT tax modules is enough to be able to compute someone's tax return.... Unless it's very straight forward!
these one's used to come out in August but like BPP they've been moved back to October.
Nothing against the actual content of BPP texts which are technically sound but personally I don't like the BPP formatting since the overhaul they had back in 2007, It's now all funky fonts and emphasis paragraphs.... If I wanted that I would just buy Dr Zeus books! I much prefer the Kaplan formatting and style.
On the version front, with tax it's definitely worth waiting for the latest version of these texts as they can change a lot between versions (although they only ever seem to get bigger). It does sometimes seem to me as though just buying the books is an annual tax in itself! (bit like the Microsoft one that we also have to pay all too regularly!).
I think that within reason AAT tax texts tend to be a little more forgiving on the version that you get than the ACCA one's which cover a lot more material.
Anyway, may hold you to that beer at sometime.
Right, now back to reading Green Eggs & Ham! (lol)
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Hi Georgie, it may encourage you if the 'one in four' was for incorrect HMRC tax calculations rather than returns submitted. I'm not certain what proportion the Revenue got wrong over the past few years but it ran into millions.
I hope you don't mind my commenting - but one of the reasons I decided to to offer the IAB L4 Diploma was because I thought it would be an oportunity to provide a qualification which could give an extremely good grounding in tax - which would not give students the feeling of "giving up the will to live" - which is what happened to me when I tried to study tax 20 years ago.
This IAB qualification has changed slightly from the original one developed prior to 2010 as it now includes Inheritance tax computations and an understanding of trusts, so covers SA etc extremely well.
The modules have been written to make it interesting, as well as an aide to learning and of course is in hard copy so students can refer back to them. I have lots of books, and stuff for tax which I can never find - and some of it has been written so badly that it needs to be read over and over to try to make sense of it. Its not always easy in tax to avoid this, but we have tried very hard with the modules, which has taken quite a long time to finalise, simply as they have sometimes had to be rewritten, several times to make certain elements easier to understand and not confuse. The trouble with tax - is we are now looking to update the modules to take into account all the 2011/12 changes, ready for the students from April 2012!
