AAT Rant and Business Tax Frustration

Sam22

Business Tax exam tomorrow but I need to vent some frustration with AAT. How can they justify so many mistakes in their study material! I've been up since 6am revising before I go to work, I thought I'd sit down and do some green light tests. Firstly, I go to 2010 as that's the syllabus I'm still doing and the AAT have no up-to-date green light tests for the current FA. So I wander across to 2013 and there it is. Secondly, I'm sitting going through the payment dates and penalties green light and questions 3, 8, 9 have answers all in the wrong format. I have to open excel, copy and paste the answers into excel and correct the formatting just to be able to answer the question! Why should I be doing this? Whoever has the job of creating this study material needs to be checking their work before it goes live.

Also, the e-learning material I found under AQ2010 is out of date. There only appears to be one practice CBT which is for FA2013 (unless of course I'm looking in the wrong place and they've been put into AQ2013 and forgotten that some students are still on AQ2010 - not very helpful) What is the point in having out of date practice and learning material still on the learning area of the website. There's green light tests going back to FA2010. These should be kept up-dated and old ones removed.

Sorry, rant over, it's just frustrating that we pay our fees and at the moment AAT seem to be very shoddy! If I wasn't feeling as stressed as I am, I don't think this would be bothering me so much, but it is.

liveprincess

Hi Sam

I totally understand. I spent an hour last night just trying to work out why the answer to one of the mock assessments personal tax questions is what it is and couldn't. I've come to think this must be an error but still not sure. I'm sitting this next week and it doesn't really help revising as not only I panic because I think I am doing something wrong and also I am wasting time.
Good luck with your business tax tomorrow, that is going to be my next :ohmy:

Sam22

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is finding this annoying. It's really poor of AAT, how are we meant to work out how we are actually doing. I've been really quite stressed about this exam because I understand everything and can explain things but then when answering questions I'm getting it wrong.

Lets see what tomorrow brings! Good luck with your PTX next week!

Michele956

Sam22 wrote: »

Business Tax exam tomorrow but I need to vent some frustration with AAT. How can they justify so many mistakes in their study material! I've been up since 6am revising before I go to work, I thought I'd sit down and do some green light tests. Firstly, I go to 2010 as that's the syllabus I'm still doing and the AAT have no up-to-date green light tests for the current FA. So I wander across to 2013 and there it is. Secondly, I'm sitting going through the payment dates and penalties green light and questions 3, 8, 9 have answers all in the wrong format. I have to open excel, copy and paste the answers into excel and correct the formatting just to be able to answer the question! Why should I be doing this? Whoever has the job of creating this study material needs to be checking their work before it goes live.

Also, the e-learning material I found under AQ2010 is out of date. There only appears to be one practice CBT which is for FA2013 (unless of course I'm looking in the wrong place and they've been put into AQ2013 and forgotten that some students are still on AQ2010 - not very helpful) What is the point in having out of date practice and learning material still on the learning area of the website. There's green light tests going back to FA2010. These should be kept up-dated and old ones removed.

Sorry, rant over, it's just frustrating that we pay our fees and at the moment AAT seem to be very shoddy! If I wasn't feeling as stressed as I am, I don't think this would be bothering me so much, but it is.

I have just taken the Business Tax exam and two of the questions included a term 'Charges on income' a term that I wasn't familiar with. I had no idea what it could be. In the end I quessed because even the title didnt give me a clue to what it may refer to. On my return home I googled the term and found out from the HMRC website that Gift Aid was formerly known as Charges on income. Now is anyone else aware of this or is it just me !!?

I don't recall seeing this term anywhere in my Osborne Study Text book for this unit and on contacting my tutor he said 'That is a very old term for gift aid relief for limited companies'.

I have since asked the AAT why they would put this into their exams and their reply was as follows: 'We have referred this issue to the lead assessor for the Business Tax unit, and they have confirmed that ‘charges on income’ is a valid assessable term for this unit'.

I would be very interested to hear if anyone else has come across this term, unfortunetly i know for a fact I have two of my questions wrong in the exam, but I am hoping that I did good on the rest of it.

Clarekaye

eeek got my exam tomorrow, thanks for mentioning about this. I never know how I have done on my exams I just wait for the result, fingers crossed you get a pass
Sam 22 have you had your result yet?

Lucy_M

Michele956 wrote: »

I have just taken the Business Tax exam and two of the questions included a term 'Charges on income' a term that I wasn't familiar with. I had no idea what it could be. In the end I quessed because even the title didnt give me a clue to what it may refer to. On my return home I googled the term and found out from the HMRC website that Gift Aid was formerly known as Charges on income. Now is anyone else aware of this or is it just me !!?

I don't recall seeing this term anywhere in my Osborne Study Text book for this unit and on contacting my tutor he said 'That is a very old term for gift aid relief for limited companies'.

I have since asked the AAT why they would put this into their exams and their reply was as follows: 'We have referred this issue to the lead assessor for the Business Tax unit, and they have confirmed that ‘charges on income’ is a valid assessable term for this unit'.

I would be very interested to hear if anyone else has come across this term, unfortunetly i know for a fact I have two of my questions wrong in the exam, but I am hoping that I did good on the rest of it.

Hi, so glad you've mentioned this as I'm due to sit this next and haven't come across that term either!!

As for AAT, don't even get me started, their latest update to my college messed up and my FNPF exam was cancelled twice because of them. Their IT is so shoddy it's appalling, and reading their gloating report of their efforts in the latest Accounting Technician was like rubbing salt in a wound....

Fingers crossed you passed despite them

Sam22

I passed Business Tax! Yaay. AAT is complete! Clarekaye, how did you find your exam?

liveprincess

Michele956 That term appears in my Kaplan business tax book. It is only mentioned once in the whole book but it is there.