General ACCABecker ACCA Exam Tips December 2014

Paper F6 • Taxation of benefits and of motor cars. • Combination of employment income & different types of property income, maybe rent-a- room or personal income tax computation. • Employment income – benefits with NICs. • Partnerships – opening and closing year issues. • Relief for a trading loss of self- employed persons. • A 12-month accounting period, with adjustments for profit. • Long period of account rules. • Capital gains in a group. • Principal private residence. • Entrepreneurs’ relief. • VAT treatment of overseas trading (EU and non-EU sales and purchases). •Class1andClass1ANIC– benefits and PAYE. • Unused nil rate bands from a predecessor spouse. Paper F7 Common areas that feature on a regular basis in the exam are as follows: • Construction contracts. • Revenue recognition. • Substance vs form. • Convertible instruments (IAS 32/IFRS 9). • Accounting for taxation, as part of final accounts question. • Accounting for assets, particularly IAS 16. • Provisions and contingencies. Paper F9 Section A • Read the examiner’s articles – Capital Asset Pricing Model. Take a look at recent Myopic management feature. • Read other key articles – Business Valuation (February 2012), advanced investment appraisal (October 2010), foreign exchange risk and its management (July 2010). Section B • IRR. • Debt factoring. • Dividend policy. • Bond valuation (including convertibles). Paper P1 • Corporate governance (CG) concepts, underlying fundamentals and arrangements. • CG in other organisations (e.g. public sector, NGOs). • Types and forms of CG (e.g. rules based, principles based, insider, outsider systems, UK Corporate Governance Code, SoX). • Agency theory, stakeholders, Mendelow. • Board structures, CEO/chairman, directors, NEDs, committees. • Internal control and business risk, Turnbull. • Ethical theories and business codes – Kohlberg, Gray, Owen and Adams, Tucker, AAA. • Professions and the public interest. • Corporate social responsibility, corporate citizen, footprints and sustainability. • Integrated reporting, social and environmental auditing. Paper P2 • Consolidations in Q1. • Disposals and complex groups (June 2010). • Disposals (December 2009). • Step acquisitions (December 2011). • Cash flow (Dec 2013). • Foreign sub (June 2010). • Complex group (Dec 2012 and June 2013). • Consolidated profit or loss was examined for the first time in over three years in the June 2014 paper. • Foreign subsidiaries have not been examined for a few exams. • Financial instruments (IAS 39/IFRS 9) to include hedge accounting, questions on this topic tend to appear in most exams • Employee benefits (IAS 19), this standard was amended by IASB in 2011 and is now examinable under the new standard. • Standards: Leases (IAS 17), share-based payments (IFRS 2), impairment of assets (IAS 36), deferred tax (IAS 12). Paper P3 • Strategic choice. • Stakeholders. • Organisational structure. • Finance – possibly sources of finance or working capital management. • Business process change. Paper P5 • Corporate failure. • Quality – possibly six sigma. • The Performance Prism. • Reward schemes.   Source Becker/PQ Magazine