Heh, no one ever said it was a financially rewarding job. That is just an impression our parents have because 20 years ago it was better than what they had. It's a totally different ball game now.

I'm not sure about the other Big4 but EY does sponsor ACCA for its employees. The draw back is you must attend classes at Sunway College on the weekends and you have a bond. Applicants should clarify with the propesctive firm what they sponsor and what are the conditions.

No idea, sorry.

Quoted for truth. Except someone who is desperate to leave for unconventional reasons.

No one I know who has left the firm I used to work for, including myself, settled for less than what we were getting. The main motivation to leave the firm is dissatisfaction with pay. Unless of course, you happen to have a very antagonistic relationship with your boss or some family issues like needing more time for kids.

And that comment about companies being reluctant to hire auditors for positions other than internal auditors isn't accurate either, but that's his opinion.

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Added on December 27, 2010, 9:46 amAdvisory is a very broad category of services. Basically its about providing "advice" to clients or providing answers to difficult questions they have on specific issues (corporate restructuring, tax issues, financing, risk management, infrastructure, anything under the sun lol). Is there a particular type of advisory work you are interested in?

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Dec 27 2010, 09:46 AM

60/40 when the rest of the sister firms in the region pays 100% is rubbish. So much for regional management.

The salary revision and peak allowance is nice, particularly for junior staff, but I doubt it will be significant to make you change your mind about leaving if you want to leave. Will it be easy to claim the peak allowance? Right now AABS staff already have problems claiming overtime and meal allowances as it is.

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Jan 3 2011, 09:21 AM

The last batch that joined was RM2450. But I heard there is a salary revision underway, actual quantum not confirmed yet.

Maybe the RM3K batch are those with professional qualifications?

Depends largely on how you negotiate your package and how you 'sell' your experience.

The number of years of service is not a real indication of experience. For example, I once worked with an employee that had 4 yrs experience in Labuan tax who could not handle even the most basic of tax computations outside of Labuan legislation.

Typically, Big 4 firms try to discount your experience from small/medium firms as "inadequate" and offer you a salary below their internal band, or at the lower end of the band. I've seen people who are more senior than me come in with below average salaries because they are not from Big 4 firms. They think very highly of themselves whether its justified or not.

When I talk about "experience", I don't mean just your experience doing tax comps, but your experience in other fields of tax work (i.e. advisory, appeals, audit negotiations, etc) and your experience managing staff (I assume with 5 years service you should be a senior level employee already).

You should check what is the market rate for your level of experience in Big 4, and negotiate from there. How much you secure depends on how valuable they think your experience will be, and how well you negotiate.

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Jan 4 2011, 05:46 PM

@ Topace111

Bonus is not obligatory, I agree. The quantum is not the issue, but the way it's paid compared to sister firms despite the regional centralisation. OT approval was a thorny issue in AABS since day 1 I joined the firm back in 2001. Lets not even go to the time eating issue coz that's just one big can of worms.

Labuan tax is RM20K or 3%, but there are issues in determining whether the activities and company itself will even qualify for the Labuan tax rules in the first place. At any rate, the reason I quoted that example was to illustrate to Taxman that he needs to promote more than his years of service to fight for an increment, not chastise the Labuan staff. Years of experience mean little if you don't have the right experience in the first place (e.g. 6yrs in Labuan vs 2 yrs in KL)

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Jan 5 2011, 09:22 AM

Starting pay is around RM2.5K Some firms have revised to RM2.7K but not all. Depends on who you join.

Yes, the hierarchy is generally as above along with the progression time.

Audit manager in 6 years is the norm. Some make it in 4 or 5 depending on how well you perform. This is contributed partly by the high turnover of the staff as well as the learning curve. If you are in tax, the progression is slower. Reason being, audit manager don't sign off accounts (that is partner's responsibility). Tax manager usually sign off.

I don't think its hard for audit managers to find work in the commercial finance line. I work in the finance department of a bank and more than half the management team here have had some audit background. Its all perception.

In Malaysia, yes. Because there are not many companies that will hire someone just for tax advisory. If they do hire an in-house tax advisor, it will probably include compliance work as well. Even then, only very large companies will pay for this role.

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Added on January 18, 2011, 2:04 pmAudit is not about being right. It's about verifying whether accounts are "true and fair" within acceptable range of error.

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Jan 18 2011, 02:04 PM

Tax advisory is very specialised. Your career options are quite limited not by the work, but by the number of companies who can afford to hire you.

Who needs a tax advisor in-house when you don't face tax problems on a daily / regular basis? That's what the tax firms are there for, to provide ad-hoc tax services. To need a in-house tax advisory, your employer will probably have to be a big group of companies or a company with businesses in many different juridictions.

However, despite the limited number of employers there is still a demand for this role, just not as wide as a finance manager or run-of-the-mill accountant. Also bear in mind, in commercial, tax advisors often have to do compliance work, service tax, GST and deferred tax, not purely tax advisory.

And if you happen to like pure advisory work, you would probably prefer to stay in the professional field

If you find you like tax, make sure you keep an open mind to the type of assignments you take. Most tax staff start out in compliance, and that is important to build your foundation.

Try to get involved in work on transfer pricing, GST and incentive applications. Those will help build your experience base further and improve your skill set beyond pure compliance work.

Also, having specialised industry knowledge can be a huge benefit when looking for jobs outside the firm (i.e. insurance, banking, petroleum tax, aviation, intellectual property companies, agriculture, property development, etc).

I think Banking / Insurance / Financials institutions are very good to specialise in because tax people in these industries are in high demand locally and regionally. The variety of products offered and being created results in a constant need for tax input on the impact of the products and solutions to clients and the service provider (i.e. special structured loans, embedded derivitives, SPV structures, investment advice, etc). Products and offering become more and more complicated these days, and being conversant in tax rules for banking issues is an advantage. Right now there is a shortage of tax people in these fields.

Also banking groups tend to have many subsidiaries that have a diverse business portfolio (property management, asset management, unit trust, insurance, etc) and can afford to hire in-house tax professionals and justify their presence. Not to mention banks have very nice benefits like lower loan rates, more annual leave, good medical coverage for you and your immediate family, etc.


@ Morgana_jaya:-

You don't have to be in the TP division or GST division to learn these things. I'm assuming when you work for the firm, you have a fixed portfolio of clients. You can see clients that have TP issues (inter-co charges) and when there is work for that, ask to get involved because its your client. Same with GST. If there is GST project for your clients, offer to get involved because it is your client, you will be the one who has to deal with them after the project anyway. I'm sure the TP / GST managers would be happy to have staff do their work for them.

Of course, that also depends on how your firm works. The firm I came from let me get involve with non-compliance projects so I learn a lot from that. I am not an expert in those topics, but at least I know the basics to be able to identify the problems and understand what advisors are telling me now. That is all you need in commercial. You are not expected to fix the problem yourself.

Glad to help. I was in your position when I started out too. A lot of companies are hiring tax accountants these days to do their annual tax filing and admin because of self-assessment. This is the bread-and-butter of our line, you cannot escape this. If you are leaving the firm for this type of role, always check whether you have to do "more" than compliance. If the answer is "no" then perhaps you should stay in the firm because the future of pure compliance staff is not very bright for your skill development.

If you really want a tax career in commercial, to make yourself in-demand you should be able to address deferred tax, transfer pricing, FRS 139 and GST. That is what will segregate you from the average compliance staff in an accounting firm. This is really a case of where a jack-of-all-trades is better than being a master. A tax advisor adds value by identifying and mitigating risks to prevent penalties, and helps to improve cash flow when possible. To be able to do this, you must be aware of as many issues as possible to nip problems in the bud before they blow-up.

I notice these days a lot of my juniors don't want to do compliance, and opt to join special divisions like advisory, tp, gst and transaction tax. I would not advise you to do this if you plan to leave the firm. Specialised fields limit your career movement. Compliance is still the core work we do unless you have the good fortune to be hired by someone as large as Petronas.

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Jan 21 2011, 09:52 AM

Yes do compliance first, and if you really want to then go to a specialisation. Just bear in mind that specialisation is going to narrow your prospects outside the firm. A lot of commercial tax jobs are compliance centered. Probably for every 500 compliance jobs out there, there is one transfer pricing position? Actually in the last 2 years, I've only seen one TP position being advertised on jobstreet, and that was for an overseas company, not Malaysian. Tax positions in commercial are very often "well rounded positions" where you need compliance + 'lain-lain'

Most companies don't need tax advice everyday. They don't restructure or enter into cross-border business contracts daily. They don't draw-up their transfer pricing policies monthly. The don't change their GST / Service tax systems regularly. When they do, it's once-in-a-while. So if you specialise in advisory / GST / TP / Transaction tax, your experience is not going to be relevant in the day-to-day running of things for most companies.

But they all do file tax returns daily, they do provisions monthly, they do estimations quarterly, and they deal with IRB very often. So compliance, like it or not, is a big part of tax inside and outside the firm. Like I said earlier, its better to be compliance based with TP knowledge, than vice versa.

It's not hard to get a job with tax experience in commercial line if you are aiming for middle management. If you want upper management, then it will be challenging because there are not many openings. The jobs are there and they pay well, but there are not many out there. If you choose to specialise, then your options are even more narrow. Most tax managers are a function of the finance department. Only really big companies have a tax dept of their own. By 'big' I mean banks, petronas, Maxis, UEM, FELDA size entities.

By finance manager, I assume you mean managing the entire finance department. Tax experience is nice, but it is not key to the post's responsibilities. You need a good understanding of accounting and other disciplines. Depending on how specialised you are and whether your accounting skills have "berkarat' or not by the time you reach that position.

Judging based on my experience, no, most tax people don't get stuck in accounting firms. I was the last of my batch to leave the firm. 90% of my seniors and managers and peers have already left before me. If you do tax, doesn't mean you HAVE to do tax when you leave. Most of us left to join commercial companies as in-house tax, some have left for overseas research firms (IBFD, CCH,ITR), but you can do activity based costing consultancy, HR management on remuneration planning, or lecturing. Whatever floats your boat.

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Jan 21 2011, 04:10 PM

Have you considered internship / vacation trainee stints during holidays? Helps with the transition.

If you have the option of full-time study before joining the workforce, I think that is a better option.

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Jan 24 2011, 10:00 AM

It will be quite a challenge. Me, I prefer the easier way. I would finish my studies first before joining the firm. Joining the workforce 1-2 years later isn't going to cripple your career nor is it going to be a terible disadvantage to you.

Compliance = tax admin (writing to IRB, filing forms) and preparing tax returns (Form C and tax computations)

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Added on January 25, 2011, 2:10 pmIt's a rumour, therefore untrue. Perhaps the person who told you this is just trying to rationalise why that person did not get in.

This post has been edited by CKJMark: Jan 25 2011, 02:10 PM

I think that depends on your own company policy and supervising manager's discretion.