“With my rather interesting career as both a VAT advisor and now a tax recruiter, my thoughts on the differences between practice and in-house might be helpful for those thinking of making the change from one to the other. Remember, this is my personal view and may differ from the thoughts of others.”
Rebecca McKerral Associate Director Pure Search
My tax career
Started VAT training at Deloitte as an experienced hire.
Joined Ryan Tax Services to do VAT advisory and VAT reclaims.
Moved in-house to Expedia as the International VAT Manager.
Joined Grant Thornton as a VAT Manager.
Left VAT advisory and joined Pure Search as a specialist tax recruiter.
Practice
Based in the regional Reading office, we were encouraged to work across all areas of VAT advisory, with no specialisms or teams to join early on. We were also enrolled on the AIIT courses, which then became the CTA (VAT route), as well as Deloitte's own regular week-long academy training courses, where we would meet up with peers from across the country to study as well as exchange gripes and moans that every new trainee in a firm will have.
It was interesting to note that every office/team was very different, very much partner dependent, as to how the teams gelled together or how much of the firm's politics encroached on the various team members.
Being in such a large practice firm, there will inevitably be politics that partners have to deal with, but you can only hope that it does not filter down to all team members.
Today, Deloitte is a National Practice, which does reduce the effects of general politics in a regional context whilst encouraging all people within the firm to get involved with work that is out of the area, allowing for everyone to be able to work on high-quality (often London based) clients even if you are in the Outer Hebrides (not that there is an office there, but you get my point). I would have loved that to have been the case when I was at Deloitte, although I was lucky to work with some great clients, across all industries, during my time there. I worked with clients in FS, travel, property, charities, retail and education, a broad spectrum of work, learning technical and advisory skills on each client account.
At Deloitte, the quality of training and client work was second to none, and I think I left there too soon and should have stayed another year to really hone my technical skills. Instead, I left due to a friend moving to Ryan and encouraging me to join him with promises of a great team (true), lots of money (average), travel (yes, lots), you know, all the usual promises!
Ryan was a hybrid practice firm, big in tax advisory in the US but mainly VAT recovery and technology in the UK and Netherlands. Advisory work was sporadic, so from a technical perspective, it could have been more fulfilling to me, although I did enjoy the travel to client sites all over the country and Europe.
Working with multiple in-house tax teams, I noted how integrated they were into the business or how removed the teams could be from strategic decisions within the organisations. That is one point that is important to note; some in-house tax teams are different; there is no one-size-fits-all approach to in-house tax, whether it is Indirect Tax, Corporate Tax or Transfer Pricing. In some organisations, tax was still relegated to the grey office in the back room of the unused building, so do watch out for those organisations. When looking to move to an in-house tax team, it is always good to explore how integrated they are into the business, as these roles will always be so much more interesting and respected. Since my time, I have noticed there is less hiding tax away and generally more bringing it to the forefront of the business, which is great.
In-house
From there, I moved to Expedia, which, as you may or may not know, is one of the world’s largest travel companies, headquartered in Seattle, with multiple locations and brands such as Hotels.com, Expedia, HomeAway, ebookers etc. It was one of those ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ roles, and I got it. And it was very different...
Everything moves at a different pace in industry, from decisions being made instantly, advice being dashed off in a quick yes/no email or over the phone, or organisational changes and decisions that can substantially affect the company's tax position. At Expedia, tax was considered to be extremely important. No big corporate decisions were made without first consulting tax and legal (although the same can’t be said for individual brands, as we discovered many times, such as popping into Sainsbury’s over lunch and seeing free holidays being given out if you bought certain beer etc., now that was a frantic afternoon to remember!), as it was generally recognised that all parts of the business need to work together to avoid issues and to ensure compliance and ultimately, profit.
Moreover, there are no timesheets to account for your time and no billing to do. However, you have more of a personal stake in your work as you are generally personally responsible for giving advice or submitting returns that can substantially affect the business. It can be a very fast learning curve but a thrilling ride, and of course, there is always support and someone more senior to run thoughts past, and of course, you can put a disclaimer on your advice, and of course, there are usually the good old advisors to use if the going gets tough! Although bear in mind that when you ask for advice from advisors, it will have to go through multiple layers, reviews etc., so you probably will wait days, if not weeks, for advice to come back, and when it does, it will be in a 4-page Word document! By then, the business had moved on, and who knows what they did in the meantime, so quick, snappy advice, Tolleys to hand for advisors, which is the key in in-house roles.
Do bear in mind in industry that depending on the organisation you work for, you will no doubt be specialising to a degree in the tax work you will be doing. In some areas of tax, this is not necessarily too much of an issue, but for advisory, be aware that you can become either an expert in that area or potentially stuck if you don’t like it, so think about this when moving in-house.
If you are professionally qualified, you will still have to maintain your CPD record, and this is slightly more difficult in-house than it is in practice, as you have to do a bit more self-study to keep on top of any legislative changes or new cases that have been decided. However, never fear; there are often (in my case) VAT clubs hosted by the Big 4 that you can go along to as a client, and these are a great opportunity to network with peers and find out what is going on in the world you advise on.
A move from practice to in-house is easy as there are generally fewer rules to work to, but more independence and often fast learning of complex organisational structures. The organisation becomes your client, and you begin to understand everything about that client, especially working alongside other areas of tax and often the legal team also, plus one of the more interesting things you get to do is work with the various stakeholders in the business, such as the CEO of Hotels.com in my case, helping to educate sales teams or marketing teams about the world of tax and the impact it can have overall.
One of the skills you also learn when in industry is to explain complex VAT/tax matters in basic language so non-tax people can understand and then want to come to you with any questions they might have. Those relationships you build and make when in-house are invaluable to help with your job and also make life far more interesting. Often in-house roles require you to turn your hand to multiple jobs, such as training non-VAT teams, managing junior people, working with finance to understand whether compliance is right, working with outside advisors and often having to manage them, liaising with HMRC, ensuring risk is managed, understanding ERP systems, and sometimes even managing your boss!
Practice...again!
I moved to Grant Thornton in Reading to further my VAT advisory career. This was a lifestyle choice, and I also wanted to get my technical advisory skills back up to speed across all areas of VAT, so a move back into practice ensures that you get coverage of VAT advice across different clients. I had to do a technical interview as having been out of technical advisory in practice for a number of years, this was important, but luckily a quick speed read of Tolleys, and all was ok.
Being back in practice or moving from industry into practice for the first time is a bit more of a shock to the system than the other way around, or that was how I felt. Back to the rigours of advisory, long emails, billing, timesheets, business development etc. Also, you don’t always get to work with the clients you would like; in practice, it depends on who holds the relationship and whether other people in the team are already working on/with that client. However, you get access to the firm's resources, relationships in the market, the power of a name behind you, a reputation for advice, and quality clients and work overall. Cross-selling between service lines is an effective way to broaden your network, reputation and client base, and as you progress in your career, the more you can work with other tax teams, corporate finance etc., the more interesting work and clients you can bring across and work on. Also, from a CPD perspective, there are often technical updates, newsletters, and alerts to send to relevant clients. Hence, you are always up to date on changing legislation, evolving case law or HMRC notices.
So, the million-dollar question is, which is better? I am not sure one is better than the other as both suit different people at different times in their careers. Also, there is a huge difference between practice firms and different organisations and industries.
My advice would be, if you want excellent technical learning and quality advisory work, then you can’t go far wrong with a Big 4, as they have excellent training, materials, support and client work. If you want a slightly more relaxed or better quality of life, some of the smaller firms can offer this, and you will still work across multiple clients, potentially also across different areas of tax. If you want to get into the nitty-gritty of an organisation and are possibly a little more commercial, with a desire to understand the strategy and ‘make a difference’, then in-house probably is for you.
So, in conclusion, when looking to make a move, research the company or firm, and use recruiters who know the teams and the detail of the roles so you can fully understand what you will be doing daily. And be aware there is a vast difference between recruiters who are ‘specialists’ and not, and who genuinely know the role or even you and what you want. Don’t be talked into or pushed into anything you don’t want.
The right role in the right organisation or firm will be there, and it might take some time to work through what or where to go, but in the meantime, there are some glaring differences between the two that are outlined here that may help you make a decision.