Looked up today to find I have passed the dip in SA. Put a smile on my face, seeing as being on the road up here in brum is not what its all cracked up to be.....table for 1 sir?

P

congratulations Phillip,

much worse places that you could be than Brum though... Just avoid Bournville at the moment. I believe that the locals are wandering around with lit torches and pitchforks looking for accountants, bankers and politicians to burn!

Talk soon,

Shaun.

Hi P

How did you study for this diploma? Is it based around using software such as Taxcalc or is there a text out there?

Cheers

Neil

Well done Phillip that is great news.

Having spent too long myself in Birmingham and Wolverhampton I am not sure though that there are that many places worse, and the comment about table for 1 certainly brought back memories and not good ones.

Regards

Mark

Hi Neil

Not sure if its different now but when I did it (last year), it was totally self study (no course provider available) I got hold of the HMRC Self Assessment Tax Return Guide  which is basically the SA bible + the help sheets on HMRC website. Plenty of coffee to stay awake, then ordered the assignment.

Once you have the assignment, with it scenarios, it's easier to work you way through the guide and help sheets, than it is to read it cold. It's a manual assignment basically filing a fictitious tax return. You can only pass the assignment by getting 100%

Bill

Thanks, Bill.

I'll use your reply as my syllabus for reference later on. The good news appears to be that I won't have to stick my hand in my pocket  until I pay for the exam.

Cheers
Neil

-- Edited by Neil on Sunday 7th of February 2010 11:22:03 AM

Sorry I have not replied sooner. I have been completing SA's for many years now and yes the bible is the SA Tax Returns Guide - currently the 2009 issue.

You must get 100% but if you are not far from it, they do give you hinters as to where you went wrong and you can then go back and amend as required. I think you are only allowed 3 or 4 errors though and you have to pay another £15.

It is also based around the paper return, so you need to print this off together with the relevant pages to add.

P

Thanks, P.

Is this the guide referred to as the Big Book? Where do you obtain one?

Cheers

Neil

I get a new one sent to me each year from HMRC, as I'm registered with them. All you do is call them up and they will send you one. I know the tel number is in another thread, so perhaps a search would reveal it.....

P

Thanks for that. I've read a few of the old threads and some of these form numbers are starting to make sense!

Cheers

Neil

Neil

I think the Big Book  refered to on the HMRC site is an in house document used by inspectors but made available to everyone through their library

I downloaded it from their site and its made up of individual HTML documents that opens in your browser, there are hundreds of pages with links, none of which I could make much sense of and it seemed to refer to the inspection process.


Bill

OK. Thanks Bill. So is the manual I'd study the one that gets sent out with an SA100 or is there something in between that and the Big Book?

Cheers

Neil

-- Edited by Neil on Wednesday 10th of February 2010 03:18:21 PM

Many thanks, Bill.

I've managed to round up my area contact numbers and will give them a call for the manual in a while. I'm grateful for your help.

I think the exam went well. I've realised I have a slight uncertainty about an aspect of the VAT question which I'll clear up later on here when I know how to phrase my query. Shouldn't be  life and death, though. I'm still optimistic.

Cheers

Neil

I have been reading your thread, as I too want to do this examination. I have made around a dozen phone calls now and they really won't send me this book until I am registered ! So I am going to register as an agent now - just to get the book...... It's absolutely crazy !

I think that the revenues problem is that this exam is an ICB construct and nothing to do with any requirement to pass an exam in order to be an agent for the purposes of offering this service.

No other bookkeeping or accountancy body has a similar requirement in order to process self assessment returns.

My accountant processes over 600 self assessment tax returns per year but they haven't passed any exam to specifically allow them to do that.

The ICB could argue that it's members are better prepared for the self assessment tax return than many others but where HMRC don't seem to have signed up to this way of thinking then we will continue to have this problem in that they will only supply the books to registered agents but as far as the ICB are concerned you can only offer this service when you've passed the exam for which you need the book!

The problem here is with the ICB and the manual should be available from them rather than the revenue who, dare I say it, are not actually doing anything amiss in this instance.

Talk to the ICB about your problems with this. They'll try to fob you off with the revenue but you really need to push home to them that the revenue won't issue the manual if your not an agent where the ICB would be able to get copies of these manuals.

Shaun

As usual, you've made a very good point here. I think I'll contact the ICB and give them the problem back since they seem to have given it to us.

Cheers
Neil

Hi,
Checked ICB a minute ago to find out my exam result says Partial. Called ICB who said I made a couple of small errors and they are sending the paper back to me to amend. Has this happened to anyone else.... I worried now about what I got wrong, just hoping its nothing major... but then if it was a big mistake then surely they would of just failed me...
does anyone else have experience of this?
Thanks
AnneMarie

Hi Anne Marie

This assignment requires 100% to pass but if you only dropped a couple of points, then they let you know what you did wrong and allow you to correct your error.

I think there are a few on the site who didn't quite make it first time. don't know what the outcome of theirs was.

Bill

Thanks bill.
bit gutted I didn't get 100%first time. but I suppose I'm not the only one...be interested to see where I went wrong
annemarie

I could kick myself really hard... received my assignment back today only to find out the mistakes I made were 2 small ones... I basically didn't copy some figures over from my rough worksheet that I had done onto the actual assignment.. I had the whole return correct except for this stupid mistake. if i had submitted my rough one instead of writing it out again so it looked neat I would of passed first time....
still at least I didn't fail on anything major I suppose.
annemarie

Easily done Anne Marie and I bet that there isn't anyone reading this who hasn't left out something obvious at some stage.

Looking at it another way, this means really that you've actually passed as soon as you return the paper.

Right everyone, drinks are on Anne Marie!

Congratulations. Hope that this has proven a real confidence boost for you.

All the best,

Shaun.

yes it has to be honest, as I was worrying I failed on something major but at least I know it wasn't...
its just made me realise I have to double check everything again and again and never try and work when the children are all up!
AnneMarie

Got my second result back after re-submitting. I failed... Have no idea why, and must of missed something that I'm totally unaware of..
Completely and utterly gutted and really dissapointed.. feel like a total failure...
The only option I have now is to go out tonight and get really drunk...
Happy birthday annemarie

thanks carole
i'm just very dissapointed as this is the first exam I have failed and its knocked my confidence massively...
still at least the kids are in bed now, wine time I think...
plus once I get the paper back and realise where i went wrong I can take it again..

As there is no training providers yet they should just say at least what you did wrong...

Attila

Hi Anne Marie,

I don't want to add to your woes but for what tax year did you do the exam; was it 2008/2009?

I understood that the ICB only have one SA exam per tax year so if you've taken the most recent exam there isn't another available until the next tax year.

Sorry for your news.

hi,
yes it was 08/09..
guess i'll have to wait until they have a new paper out...
was not meant to be this time..