I get the Melville taxation book every year (all versions since FA06), an also the Kaplan advanced tax book (since FA10) but for the first time this year I'm finding that I've got reading fatigue from reading the same, but slightly different texts each year so am in the market to alternate the Melville book with a similar one (I will always buy the Kaplan text).
The new book still needs to be a grown up text written (per Melville) in an easily readable style (so not really in the market for any lexis nexis tomes which I regard as reference rather than reading material) and it also needs to be examples driven as I prefer doing that over rote study.
My looking around at what is available has been whittled down to the 31st (FA12) edition of Taxation by Alan Combs, Stephanie Dixon and Peter Rowes. But, and here's why I'm writing this, I cannot find any edition on line that I can look inside and at £40 (same price as Melville) it's in that territory where I want to know what I am buying before I buy it.
I could buy a really old version of the book which whilst useless for tax would at least show me the level the book if working at. But of course then I waste two or three weeks potential reading time on a book that comes with a built in usefulness expiry date.
So, question is, has anyone read any version of this book and would they recommend it?
Many thanks in advance for any comments,
kind regards,
Shaun.
-- Edited by Shamus on Saturday 16th of February 2013 02:00:46 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.
In the absence of replies I assume that this text is not amongst the site members libraries so I've bitten the bullit and purchased the FA10 version for pennies (24 of them to be precise).
Next to useless for tax reference purposes but I'll report back once it arrives as to how well the format and content actually compares to the annual Melville text.
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.
at £7 with the CD that's an absolute bargain matey (also the content is just as valid for Excel 2010).
Lets face it. If you try to keep up with my library your never going to have any time or money, lol.
Anyway, night off the reading for me tonight. New bond film was released today so already been off to Asda with foldies in hand.
Not bad, £10 for seeing the old DB5 rolled out again.... Its just porn for petrol heads.
__________________
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.
The version that I have to report on is the FA09 text (only purchased to review format, not content as such although surprising how much of the text is still relevant today!).
The book is aimed more as a competitor to the Kaplan text than the Melville one. It is a full A4 text book coming in with more pages than the BPP text, much less than the Kaplan one.
The format is a mixture of look, learn, try yourself approach similar to Kaplan but also has elements of the pure text approach of BPP. (but these sections are short, free from waffle and read well).
There are embedded questions derived from excerts from old exam questions from the ACCA and CIOT. The emphasis is on how to calculate rather than how to find derive the correct information from the question (which at this level is more than half the battle).
I am impressed that this book places much more emphasis on case law than Kaplan making it a worthy purchase as a legal reference as to the legitimacy of HMRC's various stances.
Sections are short and easy to read with good explanations and well thought out insertions of examples and questions.
Some of the case law could have done with more explanaion as to what made the case different as similar cases have different results that are not easy to decipher. (There are 16 examples of case law given in relation to what constitutes capital as opposed to revenue expenditure and some of them seem contradictory meaning that I would need to go off and read the original cases to determin the differences rather than being able to derive the answer purely from this text).
And the value test...
The Kaplan P6 text is over twice the size at 75% of the price.
Kaplan has better examples and is better paced (it has much more room to be).
This text however has much better coverage of legal principles and refers the the relevant sections of relevant statute that Kaplan omits.
Overall though, whilst this book is useful (more so I would say than the BPP text) it is just too expensive compared to Kaplan.
And the conclusion.
Well, it is a good text but would I pay full price for it....
No.
Its worth buying second hand purely to keep abreast of the legal priciples but I would not pay £40 for it as a tax reference when that is the same price as Melville and £10 more than Kaplan.
For CTA exams this is no doubt a more essential text than for the general tax knowledge that many of us are looking for, so it may be a little unfair to be comparing it against Kaplan and Melville.
I would say that had the price been nearer to £30 then it would be one worth adding to an annual purchase list but at £40 I think that Kaplan is the better purchase.
Hope that review helped someone,
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. one worrying bit of case law in my reading.
Munby v Furlong (1977) Books purchased by a barrister for his practice legal library were held to be plant (capital expenditure) rather than a revenue expense.... Glances behind him.... Panic! lol
__________________
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.
I take it that you will be spending some time now sorting out which of your books are capital or revenue expenditure dependant upon their shelf life lol.
I'm going to be sticking with Kaplan for a while. If i can learn enough to pass exams from reading the study texts and answering the questions then that's
an endorsement in itself.
It's good to hear about alternatives as one study text (as you mentioned) rarely covers all the bases, and reading from different angles makes stuff stick a
little better. Kaplan however, seem to have this down to a fine art. Others reading this post may disagree as i have met students who swear by BPP, finding
study texts that work for you can be a battle in itself. I am using the thought process of 'if it aint broke, don't fix it'.
My issue with looking for alternatives is that once you have read a book so many times then you need to look at alternating it with other texts. Tax is a good example of that in that it changes every year so would be good to read the same, differently so that the differences sink in.
In general, like yourself I swear by Kaplan study texts. The read, think, try it yourself approach works well for me.
To my mind BPP shot themselves in the foot in 2007 when they dumbed down their texts on release of the new ACCA syllabus.
I've got a collection of the more timeless BPP texts from 2002 which was an excellent vintage (by timeless I am refering to management accounts, accounting theory and bookkeeping which are pretty much constants unlike tax, law and financial reporting).
In their time they really were very good books but then all of this post 2007 syllabus change playing around with font sizes and highlighting bits of texts pretty much makes the books only useful to me as paperweights. (BPP if the rest of the text that you include is not worth highlighting then don't include it and if you then had to highlight everything why highlight anything!).
One thing that I will give BPP is that if you want to learn the basics of anything quickly before starting on the study text then buy the i-learn courses. In two weeks of study they will give you the framework of any subject and then the Kaplan study text is a couple of months of putting the icing on the cake before starting on the exam practice.
It cost a lot in various materials to get to the combination of BPP i-learn, Kaplan Study text, Kaplan exam kit as the perfect combination so really hoping that BPP and Kaplan don't go and have any epiphanies and mess that up by "improving" things.
all the best,
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.
