Although I was recruited by PwC in 2002, the firm sponsored me to stay on at DCU for a further year to complete a Masters in Accounting. It meant that when I joined, I was exempt from the first set of the AITI tax exams and all but the finals of my accountancy exams. Although people working in Tax and Legal Services can just study for the tax exams, I wanted to do both tax and accounting.
I was attracted by the variety of the work in Tax and I wasn’t proved wrong - on any given day I could be working on 8 or 9 clients at a time and doing different things on each one.
Within my specific group, we offer two main services to our clients – compliance and consultancy. Every company is required to file a tax return each year and our compliance services help clients compute their tax liabilities correctly and on time. Sometimes this means that we calculate the tax liability for the company, in other cases we review the tax computation that the client has prepared and submit this to the Revenue Authorities on their behalf.
Early ownership and responsibility
The consultancy services we provide may vary from the personal tax issues of senior management and Directors to large, complex company reorganisations. The advice we give is often of a very technical nature, relying on our knowledge and interpretation of the tax legislation. We look at what taxes would apply if a company decides to structure transactions in a certain way and advise them on the most tax efficient method. The best thing about working here is that I spend a lot of time with clients and I’ve been given ownership and responsibility early on.
One of my most interesting projects was advising an Irish company, which was loss making, but with a profit making subsidiary in the UK. So the client was paying tax in the UK but as a group overall they had losses available, which were not being utilised. We helped the client look at ways of minimising their group tax charge and how to get income back to Ireland from the UK.
A life outside work
It’s a great culture here and everyone understands the importance of interests outside work. I play hurling at county level, which requires a lot of commitment, but I’ve been very lucky with the support I’ve received from PwC. My team always look out for my results and are quick to comment on my good or bad games! It was tough to fit all this in with my exams but I did it and now I’m a qualified Tax Consultant and Chartered Accountant.
