*** December 2025 ACCA ATX exam – Instant Poll and comments ***

I did not do much practice , generally reviewed TX UK videos on youtube. I wish I could spend more time by doing questions rather than reviewing only. I will mention questions below what I remember from exam. It can help someone to elobarate questions.

Section A – mainly focus on inheritance tax & capital gains tax – losses relieved & unrelieved.

Section B – Capital goods scheme for VAT in relation to building
Occupational pension scheme & Share incentive plan – a free number of shares
Controlled Foreing Company charge exemptions
job related accomodation tax benefit – flat benefit.

Hiring employee or partner to calculate costs

Did Anyone Get the paper where Sec A question for first 12 marks was to calculate the reduced Tax liability of the Building was bought via loan (option 1) or leased (option 2) . How was this to be solved? And what was the answer for the Last question in this Section, the Tax Residency status of Lara? So many restrictions yet 3 ties were supposed to be satisfied for her to be UK resident. He Days were not clear there was a range given, then Family tie satisfied but work tie was restricted by ques and no automatic tests, no Split year basis. What was the catch here how to decide whether she was resident or not?

I somehow don’t remember question 2 at all, only that there was a ques for CFC, it said what’s the implication for UK company for having a CFC abroad and no exemptions are available. I mean it was for 6 marks other than CFC charge what needed to be mentioned idk.

Then there was something about Ind recieving a house from her mother and because of which she would move out of her rented flat. Post tax and post outgoings what money she would have in hand needed to be calculated. Here, she was given part time salary, mileage allowance , outgoings were mentioned and rent of flat was there and the mother’s house that she would move in would also be rented further and rent to be recieved and a legal charge to let out the house was also there.
Calculation of post tax and outgoings amt was to be done and to comment on the tax treatment of the house from mother.

Q3 had CGT questions for calculation of Capital losses on Build and warehouse and explanation for it’s based costs were to be written I guess for 8 marks.
Then max amount of these losses that can be set off in the gains group ( one of the loss was pre entry capital loss andthe other was post entry capital loss) and explanations for it’s implications were to be given. The Group was EXE ltd group.

Q2 also had the CGT questions in regards for Gift of building by Father to daughter used in partnership business and a gift to Trust that he made in the same month before the building. CGT implications were to be discussed here, like capital gain and whether Gift holdover relief was available and BADR was available. This was for 6 0r 8 marks i don’t remember.
Then a 3 marker for the same gifts but whether BPR was applicable if the father dies in 2 years. Explanation for that

And then last part was the one I mentioned above with Daughter getting house from mother.

Q1 also had a part for engineer is self employed or employed , the Option 1&2 for buy or lease building also had a part of VAT implications of those buildings and same part included the implications and payments details for ANNUAL ACCOUNTING SCHEME FOR VAT.
Then ethics had a tax refund question, actions to be taken by firm and matters to bring to client’s attention

Honestly I can’t decide whether the exam was okay or not.

Q1 section A also had 2 IHT questions Idk what they were about i didn’t have time I ended up leaving it both were 7 markers

I attempted for 86 but I really don’t know whether I would clear or not.
This is my third attempt idk what will happen.

Please someone discuss if you got a similar paper.

Th

I would say the exam was okay. A bit disappointing as regards the areas focused on and the areas ignored(syllabus).
I totally forgot about how to treat ‘leased accommodation benefit to employees’ lol. Amongst a few other things. Hoping for the best anyway. I would become an affiliate once results are out.

Fingers crossed.

For anyone who had the question on occupational pension, what was the question looking for ?

Yes I was the same with the CFC one and waffled on from the CFC perspective when at the end and the exam was closing , I realised it was from the parent perspective we were supposed to comment

In the first question in section B on choosing the best option on whether to admit an additional person as an employee or partner. If the person was to be admitted as an employee he was supposed to be given a laptop and after being given a laptop the main pool balance was going to be nil. Does it mean we were supposed to calculate the balancing charge?

I did the same on the base cost of the warehouse but I don’t think it’s correct. We missed the aspect of pre-entry losses since the asset was acquired from while in the previous group the base cost is reset to the market value at entry and pre entry loss is the disposal to the unconnected party less the market value at entry point. I just discovered that because am already preparing for March 2026 reseat.

@study123@

You did well. I made a lot of mistakes, close to 10 mistakes across the whole paper. On the question of comparing including someone as an employee vs as a partner I only used Income tax and NIC to compare the two option and did not include the salary and profit paid to the partner in the cost comparison. I thought the cost referred to in tax is always the tax cost. I also forgot to also calculate and include the balancing allowance/charge since the question said the main pool was nil after the gift. I could’ve done better but time pressure messes up everything.

@Study123@

Was there SBA on the 8 marks group question in section B which asked for explanation of base costs for warehouse and retail unit?

@study123@
I don’t think the SBA figure was supposed to be unused on the CGT since we had no separate figures for land and building on the retail unit and warehouse but mentioning this was the point just to earn marks for professional skepticism and maybe also comment that this can be offset against the group income to also earn business acumen marks.
I never did all this and I know those are some marks I left and never earned. I think on my resit I will be better prepared for this papers and other professional papers. This was my first professional paper.