My name is rafael. I am the new one here and would like to say ' hallo ' to everybody. I learn English as a second language. I hope you don't mind that. I don't have any formal education in accounting field. I took part in accounting course - 18 days-110 hours and therefore my knowledge is little. I learn basically on my own and I use internet as a source of information. I hope I will learn a lot from this forum.
1.Where I live people do accounting according to ' accounting rules' whereas taxes are paid according to ' taxation rules'. There are many discrepancies between those two. Some costs for instance that are acknowledged by accountancy rules are not acknowledged by taxation rules . It also works in opposite direction. Do you have similiar problems in accounting in England?
2. What do you call legal act that regulates the rules of accounting in England?
3. What do you call legal act that regulates income tax rules in England?
4. What do you call legal act that regulates the rules of vat in England?
p.s
I have few books about accounting written in English but it is going to take some time before I ' learn' all English terminology related to accounting.
Thanks Shaun for reply. I have a question in relation to uk gaap. All legal documents that regulate financial accounting and taxation system in my country are available for download from government sites or from somewhere else. Anybody can download them for free. Do you think it is possible to download uk gaap documents from Englands government sites or from any other related sites? To be honest I would love to have uk gaap rules downloaded so that I can start reading about financial accounting and taxation in England. I dont take seriously the idea of working in accounting field when I think about moving to England. Foreigners if they are lucky are usually given regular jobs probably if I am lucky I will work as a cleaner or sth like that. The possibility of getting a job in accounting is very low for me since I am fourty and have zero experience plus I am not that brainy.
-- Edited by rafapak on Saturday 4th of August 2012 10:27:39 PM
it's similar in the UK. For instance depreciation is an accounting but not a tax concept.
We could talk about statute such as the companies act but I think what you are actually looking for is a route to knowledge related to what it takes to work in accountancy in the UK.
Many larger companies have adopted IFRS.
Mid range companies work to IFRS SME or UK GAAP.
Small companies generally fall under UK GAAP.
They must all also comply with the UK Legal system.
Have a look at this thread which will point you to lots of free resources
In the UK it takes six to ten years of study to become an accountant although you can work in accounts with far less study that that.
Of the ACCA papers to gain a foothold in the knowledge required to move forwards :
1) Study F1, F2 and F3 to gain a fundamental understanding of bookkeeping, and accountancy (both management and financial)
2) Study papers :
F4 - Gain an undrstanding of UK laws and regulations
F6 - Gain an understanding of UK Taxation
F7 - Gain an understanding of UK Corporate reporting
Each of those would take around three months just to read but six months plus of study to reach any form of proficiency.
If you were going to study this with a mind to qualification then I would suggest either AAT or the ACCA FIA route
The next question of course has to be what are you looking to achieve?
The fact that you are looking specifically at the UK tax and legal system worries me slightly only if you have been led to believe that there is work here which to be honest is really difficult to find in the UK in any industry at the moment.
That said, I know that there is quite a few UK accountants / accountancy practices / consultancy firms working in Poland at the moment working on various banking projects (I had the opportunity to go but have parental responsibilities so couldn't) so I'm thinking that maybe you are looking to work with one of those firms?
The Open Tuition lectures in the above link are actually all recorded in Eastern Europe including Poland where the big four accountancy firms are investing a lot in developing a major presence.
If you could fill out a little more as to what you hope to achieve with these studies we should be better able to focus our answers to help you onto the right path.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
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.
Unfortunately there is much truth in your evaluation of how things would go if you came to England. There is very bad unemployment here as with many places in Europe. If more people took your interest in the subject matter maybe the country could turn around it's fortunes but as well as people in the UK of all ages who cannot find work we also have too many who do not want to find work.
in a similar way to Poland all of the documents are available free in the UK but it is not our Government that sets the accounting standards. (although it does set the legislation including the companies act).
International standards (IAS's and IFRS's) are set by the IASB
UK standards (FRS's and SSAP's) are set by the ASB
We continue to be told that the UK Standards are to be replaced by International standards but such seems no closer now than it did in 2007 when we were being told that.
For UK standards a good starting point is the FRS page of the website of the ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales) :
For tax guidance that is run by the Government and the website of her majesties Revenue and Customs (HMRC) can be found and searched from here :
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/
I hope that helps get you started.
kind regards,
Shaun.
__________________
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.
You study to become an all round accountant giving you the foundations upon which any employer knows that whilst you may not use something in your current role you have studied it and understand the principles so training you in the use of something in the real world will be more straight forwards than training someone from scratch.
In day to day work I now need to know very little about financial instruments but I have won contracts on the basis that my qualifications mean that must understand them.
As you say, you don't know which piece you will need to know so you have to know a little about all of it (even the higher qualifications don't teach everything but they give you the foundations upon which to build your specialisations).
I have worked with PWC (and KPMG, and Andersen (RIP!), and some of the smaller consultancies) and I do understand what you mean. I remember having a chat with a very frustrated KPMG junior manager (KPMG is my favorite of the big four by the way and the only one that I would contemplate working for rather than with) who was managing a multi million pound project but was frustrated that he had spent years in training and was basically using only a small part of his knowledge base in his role.
The thing is he only got that role on the basis of his accountancy degree and ACCA qualification regardless as to whether he used such knowledge or not.
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s edited only for spelling
-- Edited by Shamus on Sunday 5th of August 2012 02:28:10 PM
__________________
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 Steve, thanks Shaun for replies. I got the idea. I am a bit frustrated because when it was time to decide about field of studies when I was 18teen I made wrong choice. I didn't go to study economics but I went somewhere else. I ' discovered' accounting two years ago - very , very late . I find it interesting and exciting from the perspective of a guy who knows nothing about practical, day to day work as an accountant. I was told that practice is important since most ideas covered in textbooks have little to do with practice. I talked to a guy who works in taxation field and he said that a lot of stuff that we learn during our training has little practical value. Well, I was also told that it is very stressfull job and a lot of ' responsibility ' is involved . It is said that many accountants use alcohol in order to reduce the level of stress that is inseparable part of their work. I will try to learn as much as I can but I realize that a lot of time is gone and nothing can be done to bring the time back.
p.s What I observed is that many coursebooks lack examples. In case you know coursebooks with a lot of examples in them , please, let me know.
-- Edited by rafapak on Sunday 5th of August 2012 03:37:25 PM
You wrote that it takes many years to become qualified in the field of accounting. It is true that I have never worked in accounting field. All I ' know ' is what I was told by other people who have experience. What amazes me is that they say that even in serious companies ( Price Waterhouse etc) people have very narrow chunk of accountancy to cover in their actual work. What is the point in studying for 10 years when you know that only very little piece of the whole thing you will need in your work ? Maybe the whole problem is that you never know which ' piece ' you will be given to do in your daily work.
You would need it all if you were a sole-practitioner. When you head into the larger companies you become part of a team, you will then become one piece of the jigsaw and specialise in one area. I think there are a lot of professions where in order to qualify you learn a lot of things you are un-likely to ever use in your working life, which is why some professions have refresher courses and continual professional development.
I used "Mastering Accounting Skills" by Margaret Nicholson and it had loads of examples. I went through half of a thin-lined student's manuscript book on the first third of the book alone!
Thanks Shaun for reply. I have a question in relation to uk gaap. All legal documents that regulate financial accounting and taxation system in my country are available for download from government sites or from somewhere else. Anybody can download them for free. Do you think it is possible to download uk gaap documents from Englands government sites or from any other related sites? To be honest I would love to have uk gaap rules downloaded so that I can start reading about financial accounting and taxation in England. I dont take seriously the idea of working in accounting field when I think about moving to England. Foreigners if they are lucky are usually given regular jobs probably if I am lucky I will work as a cleaner or sth like that. The possibility of getting a job in accounting is very low for me since I am fourty and have zero experience plus I am not that brainy.
-- Edited by rafapak on Saturday 4th of August 2012 10:27:39 PM
Hi guys
1.I would like to go back to my question again since I received no answer to that one. Do you think that legal acts that regulate uk accounting and taxation system are available for download for free from any internet sites? I browsed icaew site but nothing seems to be available for download there. Probably this is national regulation in uk that gaap rules are not available to the public unless you pay for access. Please, let me know how it works in uk.
2. Can you recommend guys any books that explain the differences and similiarities between accounting laws and taxation laws in uk ? As Shaun explained , in uk depreciation is not tax concept but it is accounting concept. I would like to learn about stuff like that. Can you recommend anything?
which will give you are selection of titles related to UK GAAP 2012
The accounting standards take presedence over the companies act (there's a line in the companies act that allows that).
So the accounting standards are accounting regulation in the UK.
To my mind jumping in at that level is way too compex and you will get lost in the detail.
There used to be a nice little CIMA book by Paul Gee called "UK GAAP for business and practice" but there hasn't been one of those since 2006 and things have changed too much in those past six years for it to still be of much use.
HTH,
Shaun.
__________________
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.
You wrote that I am asking about complex stuff. Well I think that the most important knowledge as far as accounting is concerned is how to calculate taxes. Therefore you need to study from the very early stage tax laws and accounting laws and study differences between those two. If you want to calculate deferred tax for instance you have to know that there is temporary difference between tax value and accounting value of lets say fixed asset. I know very little about accounting but I know that comparing tax laws and accounting laws is essential. I recently bought a book that deals with comparison between those two. When I ask experienced accountants for advice they tell me : Read tax laws and accounting laws! If you know any interesting materials in the field I described , please let me know. I bet there are similiarities when you compare uk laws to laws that exist in my country.
regards
rafal
-- Edited by rafapak on Monday 27th of August 2012 01:33:16 PM
