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I studied a lot for this exam and found it very tough. Wearing a mask didn’t help stress levels in there. The 35 mark question was for the most part about whether a company should take 20% or 30% ownership of a company in a foreign country. There was about 10-15 marks for questions around this and I wasn’t able to make many points at all. On the whole I found the questions to be styled very differently to the Kaplan exam practice kit. I would be surprised if I got over 40 marks so not feeling too up beat about it!
I wrote about the ability to surrender losses. in both the cases the parent company wudnt be able to use the losses asit did not form part of the 75% group. And ya i felt the overall style was different too. There was 80% explanation to perform considering its ATX, thats odd, there shudve been more calculation as we wud still get follow up marks if we mess up somewhere.
And left close companies question and shat my pants when i saw there were 6 participators and we had to prove that it was a close company. Am now reading the rules and they r actually simple so fml.IHT calculation
CGT and Incorporation relief(explanation)
E.R
Ethics question- upto what extent can experience from other clients can be used
Ways of loss relief
CFC purporse
Vat
and many other i cant remember them nowThought the exam was fair, first part related to the technical article on ACCA’s site regarding CFC charges and tax implications regarding permanent overseas establishments.
Other computations were quite fair, standard relief questions available, but required less specific details in terms of discussion and also stated which relief to be applied which was somewhat helpful.
That being said, hope I passed!
Exam was harsh but fair in my opinion (didn’t play to my particular strengths).
There are a lot of decent ATX articles on the website.
Too many for me to read through and remember on top of all the past papers for this sitting… I’ll have to work on this for December.
Was not easy but I think a fair exam;
Q1) Consortium group with 70% + choice of 20 or 30%- here I think it was 20% to avoid the CFC charge.
Q2) Incorporation relief(explanation) of a sole trader business in a company wholly for shares +
IHT calculation + E.RQ3) Ways of loss relief against current total income or previous total income, tax saved was PA 12500 at 20% – 8000 CGT at 20%
Roll-over relief replacement of building gain = 32 000, only 75% used as business and also 3000 (86000 – 83000 not reinvested) so 11000 taxed now and 21000 deferred
Vat – deregistrationQ4) close company – this was about a penalty charge of 32.5% as the shareholder got a loan from the company, loan can be reimbursed due to certain conditions.
You are right. I didn’t get any cfc, perm establishment questions in my sitting. I had capital losses and buildings sold in a group.
Wish I had cfc and perm establishment as that’s my strength.
Don’t think it’s fair that Acca change questions for cbe depending upon what time you sit. Quite harsh
roll over relief was not available on the forklift as its not a fixed plant and machinery and over all there was no roll over relief available as the amount not reinvested were more than the gains.
And ACCA had to ask from the 2 topics i skipped-Perm establishment and consortium group. They many fail me this time. Im coming back for these marks in Dec. Floor gang.I found the exam v difficult and extremely time pressured as expected. Wearing a mask in a stuffy room for 3.25 hrs whilst concentrating hard was torture.
There seemed to be lots of bitty parts to each question, the manager’s email went on and on and on. I understood the aspect of each question but couldn’t articulate it all onto the screen.
Professional level exams should on paper and not computers. It got so damn confusing opening the different attachments, emails, requirements etc. You can’t draw timelines on a computer screen which is imperative for IHT questions, you could potentially pick up a few marks for that if the examiner can see what you’re trying to do, can’t do that with CBE’s. They are just not appropriate for professional level papers.
I don’t buy the whole thing about reflecting the workplace doing it on a computer. It’s an exam. There’s no correlation.
I know I’ve failed but I wouldn’t have passed with any more time to study either.Yeah I know that through me completely. And absolutely agree on the explanation. I thought I was prepared for a lot of explanation questions but didn’t expect it to be 80% of the exam. I think there was probably a lot of easy but very niche marks. The main concepts of each tax were not the focus, it was very niche elements and rules of the taxes. I did best in the final question and over some of the residency rules but I really wasn’t expecting such an enormous focus in question one on a foreign company. I was expecting a question on consortium or capital gains groups but it was so specific. I guess it goes to show how huge this syllabus is, if I get above 40 it’ll show me that I can do it but 99% sure I didn’t pass
I sat mine in Southampton and the experience was awful. The exam was 1h20mins late, we were all sat staring at a blank screen for this long waiting. There was no explanation from the invigilators and no apology. The computer equipment was awful, tiny screens and my mouse didn’t work properly. There was even a girl behind me left the room crying because her software had crashed. The computer screens were tiny and the CBE software is horrible and you can’t open more than one box at a time which makes it very hard to understand the question fully and refer back to the scenario etc. The questions themselves I don’t think were too complicated at all however the CBE software, stress of exam being late and masks and old computers made it a very difficult experience. I am thinking of making a formal complaint to be honest, not sure if this will affect my results though.
What did everyone think of the afternoon sitting? The CBE setup threw me off from the start and my plan went out of the window. As for the questions, I struggled on the 18k loss relief on Q3 didn’t see how that was 8 marks? Obviously I missed something off. I found the VAT group question went into a huge amount of detail which I haven’t seen previously.
The whole idea of CBE at professional level is a big disadvantage to those who are going to be doing their professional papers.
Since it is first time in the Uk for students sitting their CBE exam, it is vital for ACCA to conduct a survey and ask students about their views, challenges and recommendations and overall experience of the CBE Exam.
I came out of the exam hall with the expectations to get prepared for December exam. So is another failure for me. I wish I’m wrong!!
I also sat the exam in Southampton, was chaos from the minute we arrived! They were quite clearly missing a sheet of paper from the list when they signed us in but kept telling students they weren’t down to be sitting the exam and to take a seat at the side. I had an hour of not knowing if I was going to be able to sit the exam before the 1hr 20 delay. I have complained and lots of other students in the exam were planning on it too. Definitely didn’t pass that one…
The CBE for my audit and tax papers have being awful.
I had audit yesterday in London and there was a massive It issue and glitches.People who were on the 9am exam had to wait until the afternoon session as they couldn’t fit everyone in
My exam was delayed by 2.5 hrs. Invigilators were walking around logging random people at will without any structure or communication.
The screens were small and just not suitable for a tax exam where you have to do calculation and explanation for the same requirement and then link it back. At the same time you need to read the scenario notes and extracts of requirements. That’s 4 different windows in one screen!!
I found it hard to read and comprehend information without going back and forth to the requirements and on top of that the intense time pressure you are under
I am sure like myself a lot of people missed vital information and points due to so much information in a screen.I hope common sense prevails and Acca decide to withdraw CBE exams for professional papers, or atleast give an option to do paper based. I am also looking to get in touch with Acca regarding the horrible experiences with Cbe, not sure how that will impact results. Why change something if ain’t broken?
With a paper exam, hundreds of people can sit the exam in a centre, they all get the same exam and there are no complications with CBE centres being oversubscribed and these technical issues which simply add to the stress for students. It’s an old fashioned way to sit an exam but well tested and works.
With CBE’s everyone seems to get different questions which means we are not all on a level playing field. It surely is more difficult to moderate the results.
I can see the merit of CBE’s for the F papers which have multiple choice and maybe some written elements etc but for complex exams like ATX which involves several “exhibits” it just does not make sense to run this kind of exam on computers. These papers are clearly not ready to be put on CBE either as is clear by the issues that many students suffered during their sitting today.ACCA need to restore the paper option for Professional level exams for the sake of everyone.
I thought the exam was ok, quite time-pressurised and I left myself only 2-3 minutes to answer the Q4 6-mark question on CGT/ IT implications of warehouse sales. Annoying but not the end of the world…
Q1 was VERY focused on overseas components of tax (well actually I felt a lot of the paper was). CFC charges, I wrote about them not being relevant if REP Ltd chooses 20% shareholding as the minimum % is 25%. Permanent establishment implications (no loss relief if overseas sub etc). Also discussed consortium relief as the two companies owned 5-74.99% of JAY Ltd. Ethics question on how to use knowledge gained from previous work, I wrote about confidentiality and professional competence and due care (legislation in the overseas country may have changed since a few years ago and we need to be up to date). Found it weird that we were required to write in note form when Q1 includes the 4 professional marks…would be interested to know how others prepared their layout?
Q2 I think was about Freya and her residence status, put some bits about her being a temporary resident as she plans to return to the UK in 5 years so CGT would be payable on her return. Incorporation relief came in and I discussed how she would be seen to be ceasing trading so we need to use the closing year basis for her final tax year (overlap profits etc). Can’t remember the rest, it was all such a blur! I think there was an IHT liability requirement, where you had to include the previous gift to trust and PET that used up the NRB. Was a fairly straightforward requirement, but difficult when you’re under a lot of time pressure!
Q3 Close company questions were ok, although I got confused about 6 participants being needed to reach >50% so said any number of directors could be included (this is probably wrong but oh well). Loan penalty tax and implications on repayment date using 9 month 1 day, not too taxing (pun intended). I said that the penalty for filing 4 months late was £200, hope this is right?!
Q4 I just tried to get as much down as I could in the remaining time. VAT deregistration at £83k, CGT/ IT implications of carrying back loss against trading profits or using it against current year gains. Said you need to elect for the latter.
Overall it’s a doable paper but I found it difficult timewise. Also, I took the exam in London Oval and there were major delays to the start of the exam which were extremely unhelpful. Very noisy generator throughout the exam, desks crammed into foyer hallways, cables everywhere, we weren’t even asked to put our bags away so they just stayed with us at our desk…and to top it all off, my keyboard had no pound sign! Would not recommend to a friend.
I had a similar experience Claudia – similar points for your answers. Surprisingly I had a bit of a nightmare with the taxable benefits and provision of loan vs company paying for Dorian’s travel assistance and the time pressure didn’t help for that. Good luck!
Sat it in Ealing, London (Viglan) house, equipment wasn’t too bad and had a generally pleasant experience despite some delays. I think for CBE at Professional Level there should be a paper copy provided also in addition to the software as I find typing my answers and spreadsheet software so much more efficient then pen and paper.
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