*** P6 June 2014 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Started with question 3 and 4 and was feeling confident, got to 2, not so bad but not great, then question 1 a just threw me, that was pretty complicated. Hopefully picked up a few marks in the written part though

did not understand question 1 at all. glad i attempted this last. rest of paper was passable. q1 was an unincorporated company… didnt really get the difference in the two disposal options suggested. both were selling the assets?? or not? 🙂

Question 1 very very difficult, on the whole very hard. Expecting to resit in December 🙁

I spent ages working out question 2 based on 5 associates and getting the profits under the marginal rate. Had a great answer then re-read the question to see they were all 23% companies.

Absolute waste of time!

Threw me for the last 2 questions!

Will deff be re-sitting.

part 1 the biggest problem was getting your head round the scenario. Then there was a timing difference due to the cessation of trade.

1st Jan 2015 OR 30th April 2015. The 30th April taxable in 15/16 and 1st Jan 14/15, there was also additional income due to the 4 months (29k)

Also they asked you to calculate trading profit from 1st May 2013 which was slightly odd as you could work in the margin and just calculate the difference in closing tax cost.

Disposing of assets, entrepreneur relief was claimable. You needed to add assumptions such as it was a trading company etc etc, I didn’t do this part well.

Again the IHT question requried some thought, BPR was available (you had to state conditions or assumptions) if he died while business was still owned. If business was sold and then father died afterwards then it become a PET with taper relief etc

Question 2 I found tricky, but do-able. The loss relief was tricky.

I used carry forward loss relief of 68k for offsetting 41k leaving 27k carry forward.

Then offsetting the loss against current year income and gains.

The diposal of the sub qualified for SSE as over 10% ownership for more than 12 months in the 2 years before disposal.

on to part B – i think and there was a question about the timing of diposal. Proceeds being 80k for 1st Oct diposal and 100k for April i think disposal date. The key point here is that SSE will still be available within 2 years of the original diposal but not over a year or 2 years, something along those lines.

I chose question 4 and 5 and thought they were tricky but do-able.

childcare allowance for lower rate is £55 per week or higher rate £28 per week. There may have also been a child care benefit charge if anyone earned over £50k, i didn’t chose this question but know that the £50k is something new to the sylabus.

I think for me one of the hard things I find about tax is that you have to carry on, even when you know that you have not done the question correctly. The rules can be so tricky and tiny changes in scenario can mean a different situation arises (dates of death/gift being a good example of this)

How did people find question 1 and 2 overall?

where was the SSE in question 2??. As I remember the holding disposed was just 5%.

In Q2 i believe the SSE applied to the initial disposal of the shares when they had 17% (12% was disposed of? If i remember correctly) so there was no gain there.

Then in part 2 or whatever it was, where you could dispose now or in the next accounting year, i put it wanted you to calculate how much you could dispose of now and save some tax and then dispose of the rest next year. Think i calculated like a 4k saving…

You’re never going to believe this – my watch slowed (finally stopped just before the end) during the exam!! And the exam hall is massive so from the back I couldn’t read the clock!!

I asked the time, he said “25 past”, but I assumed that was 11:25, not 12:25!!! As it didn’t feel like I’d been in the exam that long!!

Argh, I was thinking I’d timed it really well, leaving a 1hr for the last two questions, when really there was only 15mins left!!’

Soooo frustrating, I’m the sort of person that brings two calculators into the exam – I’ve never worried about needing two watches!!!!

I may have scrambled together 10 marks tops for questions 4 & 5 (if I’m lucky). I can only hope that I did well enough for q 1&2 to get a pass.

Sounds like it was a tough exam for all, and from the comments I seem to have faired OK on q 1&2,

I’m expecting to re-sit, but if I pass it’ll be a miracle/ happy bonus.

Ggggrrrrr!!! Soo annoyed!!

V was a consortium, 17% for 6 months and 5% for 6 months, does this mean 12% across the year or we can only loss relieve 5%? Ive not seen that before, i went for 12%.

Also yeah i got that R and L was a capital gains group but L was not able to have any losses relieved vs its profit leaving it at 75k profit in the year (its gains could be offset vs the losses carried forward in the capital gains group?).

Also how many associates are in the group? I said 6 but ive seen 5 mentioned earlier on. Ive looked in my notes and i still think 6 but now im not sure.

Im not so sure. Ive seen a past question similar where the term “loads” didnt really matter, we calculated the limits based on the associates given to us. The question asked for “any extra info needed” i think we needed to ask about the extra associates.

Im not sure Kaplan would be to blame for a fail. I think the examiner was a little harsh this time, the December exam was a nicer paper. Q1 was something out of the ordinary and I feel Q2 was a harder group relief question than we have been used to. Also this was the first exam ive seen in a while where very few marks were attributable to capital gains reliefs.