The Tax Professionals Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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In this episode, learn what in-house tax teams value and want from external tax advisors, so you can be their advisor of choice, with our guest Stephen Hodgson, in-house Head of Indirect Tax at Entain. There’s some excellent advice from Stephen too re how to break bad news to a client in a good way and re what practical tax advice actually is.

Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPP105

Tax Advice Masterclass (next one Nov 24): https://www.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/masterclasses/ 

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Take control of your career progression free course: https://documents.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/freecourse

You’ll Learn

• The indirect tax team that Stephen runs
• (9:00) The type of external advice that Stephen’s team in particular take
• (13:00) What do in-house tax teams want from external advisors 
• (15:15) What level of responsiveness/communication is needed to keep in-house tax team happy
• (20:00) Whether, even as a large corporate, they would only consider Big 4 advisors?
• (23:00) The impact of cost when it comes to choosing and working with external tax advisors
• (25:30) The factor of industry knowledge and direct knowledge of the business
• (28:30) What Stephen means by practical advice (which is valued very much)
• (34:15) What a bad external advisor looks like? Bad traits/attributes
• (36:15) How to deal with giving advice the client won’t want to hear in a way that they value
• (40:30) Who interacts with external advisors – is it only the heads of tax?
• (43:00) How to build a relationship with an in-house tax team from scratch to have the opportunity to support them
• (51:00) What Stephen would do differently when working with in-house tax teams, if he were to go back to practice
• (54:30) How an external tax advisor can be the advisor that an in-house tax team wants to work with and value?

Resources

Previous episode with Stephen: TTPP53: Moving from Practice to In-House (Industry) with Stephen Hodgson, In-House Head of Indirect Tax 

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Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPPBREAK

Masterclasses for Tax Professionals (Tax Research and Tax Advice): https://www.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/masterclasses/

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Take control of your career progression free course: https://documents.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/freecourse

Timings

• Break and why
• (5:00) When will new podcast episodes be released? Future of the podcast
• (6:30) Planned episodes/pipeline upon the return from the break
• (12:00) Recommended episodes to listen to in the meantime

Me – Jack Bonehill

Email: jack@thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackbonehill94/

Recommended eps to listen to in the meantime

TTPP98: How and Why I Moved Tax Role After Being Loyal for 7 Years (Interviewed by Sam Hart)

TTPP96: Why She Failed One CTA Paper Multiple Times but Then Passed and Qualified with Amy Rylance

TTPP88: Her Spectacular Route to Tax Partner at 29 with Ele Theochari [Tax Career Success Secrets Ep 12]

All CTA/ATT/CBE episodes

TTPP76: Why and How to Take Control of Your Tax Career with Charlie Friend

TTPP61: 3 Great Ways to Make Money Outside Your Main Tax Role (and Related Advice)

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Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPP96

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Take control of your career progression free course: https://documents.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/freecourse

You’ll Learn

•  A bit about Amy and her tax career 
• (5:45) Overview of Amy’s ATT and CTA journey, including what happened when she sat her first CTA paper
• (12:00) Amy’s key advice for passing the CTA Application and Professional Skills (APS) paper
• (16:30) With hindsight, how would Amy have prepared differently for the CTA Human Capital Advanced Technical Paper (HC AT)
• (19:15) How Amy kept motivated and determined to pass after her knockbacks and why she almost gave up
• (25:00) The evolution of her mindset – to get the right one to pass
• (28:00) What Amy did differently, the time that she passed – how she passed and studied learnt the whole syllabus with a deep understanding of the topics 

Resources

Tax flashcards/squares – email Jack (jack@thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com) or Nitin (cta@bpp.com) for samples.

FREE – CTA Study Phase Checklist so you can make sure you ‘complete’ the study phase before revision, going into revision as prepared as you can

FREE – ATT/CTA revision folder guide, which was made when the exams became open book. This is somewhat outdated now, but there is still useful information in there

FREE – 8 CTA/ATT revision tips summary, which does exactly what it says on the tin

Other exam-support related podcast episodes: https://www.thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/category/podcast/att-cta/

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Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPP12
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You’ll Learn

·         10 tips to help you progress and improve your tax career

·         About misconceptions that I had about a successful tax career, so that you can throw them out the window and focus on what’s important to progress

·         The benefits and value of having a tax specialism

·         How to create your own career USP

·         Key skills that you should start learning as soon as possible to set you up well for your future career in tax

Related Episodes

·         TTPP 3: How to Obtain Good Quality Feedback (and Why You Should Ask for More!)

·         TTPP 4: How to be a Better Delegator to Progress your Career with Mike Clayton

Calls to Action

·         Decide on or understand what your USP is

Intro

A long 5 years ago (yes long!), I started my tax career as a Trainee Tax Consultant.

As a naïve and slightly over-confident 21-year-old, I thought I knew exactly what I needed for a successful tax-career and that it would be plain sailing. 

I can now confidently say that I had no idea. Who would’ve known!

Over the past 5 years, I’ve become CTA qualified and most recently, promoted to Tax Manager. Both of which I am proud of.

I’m not saying these to brag or show off in any way. I’m saying it to give you confidence that you can achieve it too, and to just say I’ve learnt a thing or two over the past 5 years that I’d like to share that I think you’ll find useful.

So, in this episode, I’m sharing tips from what I’ve learnt on my journey to Tax Manager, to help accelerate your progression and improve your tax career. 

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You’ll Learn 

• How to improve your chances of converting opportunities into client work without being pushy 
• The common mistakes that people make when it comes to selling so you can avoid them 
• What the preparation stage before a meeting to discuss opportunities with a client or prospective client should consist of 
• What you should do during and at the end of these meetings to increase your chances of converting the opportunity into paid work
• How best to follow up an opportunity with a client after you’ve quoted, without being pushy   
• How to politely ask a client if they are still interested in a potential service, and how you can use Martyn’s ‘ultimatum’ email as a last resort 

Introduction

If you work in a role where you provide tax services and advice, at some point you will be faced with the requirement to win client work.  

Or, if I were to use the dreaded word, ‘selling’ services to clients. 

As tax professionals, this is not something we are taught how to do. It’s one of those things we are expected to ‘pick up’ on the job. 

But it is absolutely paramount that you are able to win client work if you want to make it to Senior Manager or above, generally speaking. In some firms, you may even need to do this at more junior roles. 

So, if you want to progress your career to these levels, you will need to develop and work on the skill of winning client work. 

That’s why I thought it would be great to invite this episode’s guest, Martyn Sloman, onto the podcast.  

Martyn is known as the “non-pushy” sales trainer – which instantly caught my attention, as I’ve been worried about coming across as pushy in the past, and maybe you have too. 

All of Martyn’s advice is provided to help you be “non-pushy” too, but be “professionally persistent”.  

In the episode, Martyn provides some great tips to improve your chances of winning client work.  

So, if this is something you are looking to get better at, I highly recommend you take a listen! 

Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPP11
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Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPP10
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You’ll Learn 

• The approach I recommend you take to write good quality tax advice 
• What you should do before and after writing the advice 
• How to become quicker at writing advice
• Some final tips to help you become better at writing tax advice

Related Episodes

• TTPP 1: How to Undertake Effective Tax Research
• TTPP 3: How to Obtain Good Quality Feedback (and Why You Should Ask for More!)
• TTPP 6: How to Build and Maintain Strong Tax Knowledge to Excel as a Tax Professional

Resources

• Eats, Shoots and Leave book by Lynne Truss (a book to help you master correct punctuation, if you prefer books – I know I do!) 
  
  Just to note, if you purchase through this link, you will support the podcast as Amazon will make a small referral payment to me at no additional cost to you.
  
  
• Free apostrophe guides:

         o   https://www.thepunctuationguide.com/apostrophe.html

         o   For Acronyms in particular: here

• Free guide to avoid comma splicing: here
  
  
• Skill Share (where you can improve your skills from from online courses, covering everything from Excel (and other hard skills) to business writing (and other soft skills!).
  
  You can get access to all of their courses for free two months by signing up with this link: 2 Free Months of Skill Share. 
  
  Just to note, by signing up for the free 2 months through this link, you will support the podcast, as Skill Share will make a small referral payment to me, at no cost (and no additional cost if you decide to continue to use after the free two months) to you.

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You’ll Learn 

• About the impact that COVID-19 has had on the tax-job market 
• Trends in terms of how coronavirus has affected the recruitment process of tax jobs and remote working 
• Georgiana’s tips on how to approach your job search 
• Georgiana’s CV and interview preparation tips for tax professionals 
• What you could do if you’ve been made redundant to increase your chances of getting a job quickly

Introduction

Coronavirus has taken its toll across the UK economy, and it is no secret that it has taken an impact on available jobs, including jobs within the tax profession.  

Some working in tax have been furloughed for prolonged periods, and some will be at risk of, or have already been faced with, redundancy.  

It is inevitably a difficult time, and I wanted to help in some way through the podcast, to help those of you who are in an unfortunate position and need to look for a new job in an unprecedented market. 

So, Georgiana Head, an experienced and well-known tax recruiter, joined me on the podcast to explain from her experience what the current tax-job market looks like, how it is changing, and to provide you with tips to improve your chances of successfully landing your next job. 

Georgiana first trained in tax, becoming ATT qualified and working for PwC, before moving to recruitment. She works closely with candidates to help them understand suitable and available jobs, even if this is for a role which she is not recruiting for, and helps them to increase their chances of being offered a tax job by improving CVs and helping them to properly prepare for interviews.  

Take a listen to find out what Georgiana has to say!

Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPP9
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Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/ttpp8

You’ll Learn 

• Essential Excel shortcuts and time-savers to enable you to become quicker at using Excel 
• Highly used, must-know and beneficial formulas, which will enable you to do 90% (or at least most) of the tasks you’ll ever need or want to do in Excel 
• Tips to help you review formulas to correct mistakes and errors 
• Some pointers for good practice when creating an Excel sheets so they are more useable, easily understandable, and less likely to be broken by others 
• What you can do if you’re stuck 

Introduction
Before I started working in tax, being able to use Excel hadn’t even crossed my mind. 

All I thought would be important was learning tax rules and being able to advise accordingly. 

But, as you probably know, there’s much more to being a tax professional. 

You may not see it as essential but being able to use Excel well will save you SO MUCH time and hassle in the long term. And there will probably be times where you have no choice but to use it! 

I got thrown in the deep end within weeks of my first tax job, with what was a large and difficult Excel task, with another one to follow shortly after. I had no prior knowledge or experience in Excel at this point (apart from the basics of adding and subtracting!), which made this all the more tricky.  

At the time I didn’t realise what a great opportunity this was. I just wanted to get stuck into learning tax.  

But looking back, it really was an excellent experience for me in building my Excel skills. I was enrolled on a thorough online Excel course and then immediately after able to apply what I’d learn in a practical, real scenario. 

Since, I’ve built many spreadsheets since which I’ve been proud of. Yes – it is possible to be proud of a spreadsheet!  

The only thing with courses for Excel is they are, generally speaking, very generic. Only some of what you learn will be useful on the job, and if my experience is anything to go by, you’ll probably never use large amounts of it again.  

That’s not a good use of time and personally I think unnecessary for many people to do. 

To save you time, energy and effort, I bring you this episode to give you what I think are the key Excel essentials. 

From my own experiences, these will enable you to do most things that you’ll ever need to do in Excel as a tax practitioner and will enable you to do these quickly to save time, which is such a precious resource in today’s world. 

There’s so much more I could have put into this episode but to keep it brief and relevant, I’ve only included what I think are the must-knows. So, there’s a good chance there will be future episodes supplementing this.  

Take a listen to find out more – I think you’ll find it useful.  

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Ever come out of a meeting, thinking that it was a complete waste of time?  Like it was not necessary for you to attend the meeting?  

That your time could be better spent elsewhere? 

You’re not alone.  

This is a common problem for those who work in professional services (and not just restricted to us who work in tax!). Learning how to run an effective meeting is one of those things we are not taught.  

We end up learning from observing, and there’s a good chance the people we observe haven’t been taught how to run an effective meeting either.  

Can you see the problem? 

The thing is, running an effective meeting is not rocket science, as this episode’s guest, Loren Lazarony put it, as long as you know HOW.  

Once you know how and have a little practice, it is easily doable!  

Loren is the owner of Laz International Training, and has been providing business skills and project management training to global professionals for over 8 years. He has particular expertise in relation to running effective meetings, which he has distilled down into an online course. 

Meetings are an integral part of being a tax professional. For me, being able to run effective meetings is especially important in relation to client ones, but regardless of whether you work for an advisory firm, within an in-house tax team, or otherwise, being able to run effective meetings will benefit your career. 

In the episode, Loren provides lots of great straightforward, practical tips that you can implement to enable you to run more effective meetings. 

Take a listen to this episode, and let’s put an end to bad meetings!

Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/TTPP7
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In this episode, I share the strategies and methods that I, myself, have and still use to build and maintain my tax knowledge, to help you do the same.

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. 

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. 

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.

Show notes: thetaxprofessionalspodcast.com/ttpp6
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