Membership requirements
In addition to passing the examination, you will also need a minimum of 2 years' experience, either part-time or full-time, working in taxation or in any other occupation which entails an element of UK taxation and be a fit and suitable person for admission. You will need to send a self-certified statement of your working experience.
Examination Requirement
To satisfy the examination requirement for membership you will need to hold, or be entitled to hold, three valid Certificates of Competency (including the two compulsory Certificate papers), plus passes in the two E-Assessments (or four Certificates of Competency under the former exam structure) at the date that you make your application for membership.
Entrance fee, annual subscription and sponsors
An application for membership must be made on the appropriate form, supported by a statement from 2 sponsors. Your application must be accompanied by the entrance fee plus a proportion of the annual subscription for the year of admission. For following years the annual subscription is due on 1 January. A reduced annual subscription is payable by members of The Chartered Institute of Taxation.
HMRC approval
HMRC and the relevant authorities in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man have approved the Association for the purposes of deduction of members’ annual subscriptions for Income Tax.
Examination Certificate Papers
The examination consists of six 3 1/4 hour Certificate papers. To become a member a candidate must pass three Certificate papers which must include the two compulsory papers; Personal Taxation, and Business Taxation & Accounting Principles plus the two E-Assessments on Professional Responsibilities & Ethics and Law. Questions may be set on the following:
- Prospective legislation passed more than 5 months before the examination date even if it is not in force;
- Matters which are not specifically listed in the syllabus but which are related to topics within the syllabus, e.g. accountancy principles for the computation of business income;
- Matters which require a knowledge of taxes which are not specifically within the syllabus of a particular paper but are within the syllabus as a whole.
Questions will not be set which require knowedge of:
- Any statute receiving Royal Assent or any statutory instrument made less than five months before the examination date;
- With the execption of Inheritance Tax, any legislation repealed or superseded more than five months before the examination date;
- Any case reported less than three months before the examination date.
Detailed syllabus information can be found on the student section of the website.
Format and Syllabus
Certificate papers will be in traditional form with a mixture of computational and written questions and no question choice. The short-form questions will carry marks of between two and four marks each and in total will account for 40% of the available marks. There will therefore be between 10 and 20 such questions in each paper. The remaining available marks will be accounted for by between three and five longer questions carrying from 10 to 20 marks each.
Examination pass mark
To pass a Certificate paper, a candidate is required to achieve 50% of the total marks available.
Failures
Those who fail a paper will be permitted to re-sit any subsequent examination, provided that they submit an examination entry form and pay the appropriate fee at each attempt and are registered as a student at the time of re-sitting. However, Council reserves the right to limit the number of times a candidate may re-sit the examination.
Under no circumstances will correspondence be entered into with regard to any examination result.
