Chartered Tax Consultant is a new professional tax qualification just launched by The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI).
This is a post qualification programme for Chartered Accountants who want to develop skills as a tax consultant and gain a professional qualification in taxation. As a qualification exclusive to Chartered Accountants, its design ensures that the new Chartered Tax Consultant will have market-leading tax skills, which will make them highly employable and highly educated in the area of tax. The programme also builds on the newly developed competency syllabus for the Chartered Accountant student which targets the development of work focused technical knowledge and skills.
The programme has been designed by Chartered Accountants, and is being introduced after many of ICAI's members showed a demand for it. Indeed, since the ICAI announced its plans to launch Chartered Tax Consultant, it has received huge interest from a wide range of students, members and employers alike.
Chartered Tax Consultant will be taught in three stages. For new syllabus Chartered Accountancy students, the first stage will be taught through a tax specialism option available as part of their final accounting exams of the Chartered Accountancy examination programme. This specialism is taught for the first time in September 2009 and will be examined in 2010. The next two intensive stages will commence in 2011 and will be taught over one year. The fact that the student can build on achieving another professional qualification while studying for the CA finals means that the programme makes the best possible use of the student's time and effort. Current members can also undertake the programme of tax qualification at Stage 2, commencing in 2011.
The programme is structured to build upon the Chartered Accountant's knowledge, experience and reputation, explains Becky Bristow, ICAI Director of Lifelong Learning. "We asked our members what their ideal tax qualification would be, what it would cover and how it would be presented, and then designed the Chartered Tax Consultant programme to exceed those expectations."
The programme will rigorously teach the skills of tax planning and tax compliance through interactive and practical learning grounded in tax law and real life tax consultancy topics. The ICAI has set itself the challenge of ensuring that the qualification is taught in a small class environment using a team of leading tax experts to teach the course. The key emphasis of the programme are on learning the skills of reading, interpreting and applying primary source materials such as tax legislation and case law, and combining these skills with the business and technical skills of a chartered accountant. Exams will be open book to ensure that competency and commercial problem solving skills are achieved by the successful candidate. The programme will be taught in the ICAI's new training centre in Pearse Street, Dublin 2 using state of the art online webcasting capacity and cutting edge technology to facilitate optimal learning.
The Chartered Accountancy brand is instantly recognised as the elite of the financial and business profession. This brand quality is derived from ICAI's steadfast commitment to the highest standards of integrity, professionalism and education. All of these standards and more will be committed to ensuring that the Chartered Tax Consultant qualification is worthy of the name Chartered.
For full details see www.icai.ie/charteredtax