Make sure you read the tax rates and allowances in the exam. You may find they prompt you to remember things. For example, as high emission cars only receive a 10% WDA for capital allowances it may remind you that high emission leased cars with CO2 of > 160g/km have a restriction in taxed adjusted profit computations of 15%.
Memory aid
The badge of trade to determine if someone is self employed can be remembered using the mnemonic SOFIRM:
Subject matter of the transaction
Ownership period
Frequency of the transactions
Improvements and marketing
Reasons for sale
Motive (profit)
FAQs
Q. Why don’t I include all NSB interest in the income tax computation?
A. National Savings Certificates are exempt from income tax and should be noted as such and excluded from the computation. NSB easy Access Accounts and NSB Investment Accounts are paid gross and should be included in the computation as the amount received.
Q. How do I deal with expensive cars in capital allowances computations?
A. Expensive cars are any costing more than £12,000 but this was prior to the introduction of the new rules based on CO2 emissions. Therefore all you need to remember for the exam is that if there is an expensive car brought forward then keep it in its separate column. Remember to claims 20% writing down allowance but that it is restricted to £3,000 per annum. You may need to pro-rata if the accounting period is less than 12 months and the restrict to business use for sole traders.
Q. What are the core areas I need to learn?
A. You can find this at the front of the Kaplan Essential Notes or on the ACCA website, but generally these are Income tax, corporation tax, capital gains, VAT and Inheritance Tax.
Q. How much work do I need to do!
A. Enough for you to feel confident on the day, I always say you don’t want to feel you’ve let yourself down due to a lack of work as that is one thing you can control!
Q. Where can I find good practice questions?
A. Use the Kaplan Exam kit, do the mock exam and attend a Kaplan Question Based Day.
Q. Where can I access relevant articles?
A. They are all on Kaplan EN-gage www.en-gage.co.uk or the ACCA website.
Q. Are pro-formas important
A.Pro-formas are vital to success in this exam. The examiner will be expecting you to use the correct layout for each question. If he has to search through your question paper for the answers, this will not improve his disposition. For adjustment of profit, ensure you put 'nil' if the amount is allowable. Besides which, pro-formas give you the student, an easy way to remember the key elements of each individual tax. My advice? Write the individual pro-forma on a separate piece of paper, and adorn your room with them. Seeing them every day, will help cement the format in your minds.
Q. Do I need to remember all the loss section names?
A. In short, no. The examiner has stated no section numbers are required at all for loss relief. Explain what you are doing with the loss relief.
Q. Can I miss out Capital Gains Tax, as I don’t like it?
A. No! CGT is the basic for a 20 mark question (the 3rd largest question on the paper) it is a must that you at least have an understanding of the tax. Please remember however, that a pass mark is 50%, if you perform well in Q1 (Income Tax) and Q2 (Corporation Tax) you may still pass the exam even with poor marks in CGT and IHT.
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