There aren't a lot of children's stories about a tax accountant, a bookkeeper or an bean counter. We cannot use the word uninteresting here, but it would be true to say that those people who do your accounting, ready your tax return, your business activity statement, who work out your PAYG and your capital gains tax, are not sometimes thought of as exciting.
Kids can be captivated by anything, but maybe not a tax accountant. There are children's stories about carpenters, farmers, doctors, train drivers, and naturally queens and kings. The children's nursery rhyme tells that "the king was in the counting house, counting up his money". But an business consultant is someone that counts other people's money, does other people's accounting and bookkeeping, and who can say what BAS and GST and CGT and linear depreciation schedules actually are.
Accountants belong to collectives of accountants with names like Association of Accountants, Countrywide Tax and Accountants Association, the Financial Services Accountants Association. There are likenames for groups of bookkeepers; there is even the "Australian Association of Professional Bookkeepers", which might carry the implication that there's, somewhere, a group of newbie bookkeepers, who process invoices and prepare finance reports exclusively for the fun of it.
We should be thankful that there are folk ready to try this. There are plenty of jobs which are not fun, but which someone has to do, and accountancy is one of these, for most of the people. Handy, but rarely intrinsically engaging. Your tax accountant, or if you (or he) like, your tax expert, will generally have knowledge of heaps of matters related to money, so he's kitted out to provide monetary guidance; superannuation, family trust structures, self-managed funds, dividend imputation, tax return and franking credits - this list could go on and on but you will soon lose concentration, unless you are an accountant yourself.
We are told the 2 great certainties in life are death and taxation. The Doomsday Book sounds a bit like something to do with death, though it was really about taxes. A giant book too, like the Earnings Tax Assessment Act. It's your tax accountant's task to keep abreast of that continually changing publication, allegedly of over five thousand pages.
There's little question that tax accountants are critical in keeping the wheels of business working. It is down to the fact of this that many younger people leaving school go into bookkeeping, then actuarial studies, and on to chartered accountancy. And the CPA - the Authorized Practicing Accountant - is a qualification valued in business and respected in the neighborhood. That is your tax accountant - licensed, and practicing on your tax return.
Finishing high school and undecided what to do? Get work as helper to a bookkeeper, and so start your working life as a sub-bookkeeper. Allegedly that's the only word in the English language with 4 contiguous letter pairs - your introduction to the accountant's private double entry system.
Kids can be captivated by anything, but maybe not a tax accountant. There are children's stories about carpenters, farmers, doctors, train drivers, and naturally queens and kings. The children's nursery rhyme tells that "the king was in the counting house, counting up his money". But an business consultant is someone that counts other people's money, does other people's accounting and bookkeeping, and who can say what BAS and GST and CGT and linear depreciation schedules actually are.
Accountants belong to collectives of accountants with names like Association of Accountants, Countrywide Tax and Accountants Association, the Financial Services Accountants Association. There are likenames for groups of bookkeepers; there is even the "Australian Association of Professional Bookkeepers", which might carry the implication that there's, somewhere, a group of newbie bookkeepers, who process invoices and prepare finance reports exclusively for the fun of it.
We should be thankful that there are folk ready to try this. There are plenty of jobs which are not fun, but which someone has to do, and accountancy is one of these, for most of the people. Handy, but rarely intrinsically engaging. Your tax accountant, or if you (or he) like, your tax expert, will generally have knowledge of heaps of matters related to money, so he's kitted out to provide monetary guidance; superannuation, family trust structures, self-managed funds, dividend imputation, tax return and franking credits - this list could go on and on but you will soon lose concentration, unless you are an accountant yourself.
We are told the 2 great certainties in life are death and taxation. The Doomsday Book sounds a bit like something to do with death, though it was really about taxes. A giant book too, like the Earnings Tax Assessment Act. It's your tax accountant's task to keep abreast of that continually changing publication, allegedly of over five thousand pages.
There's little question that tax accountants are critical in keeping the wheels of business working. It is down to the fact of this that many younger people leaving school go into bookkeeping, then actuarial studies, and on to chartered accountancy. And the CPA - the Authorized Practicing Accountant - is a qualification valued in business and respected in the neighborhood. That is your tax accountant - licensed, and practicing on your tax return.
Finishing high school and undecided what to do? Get work as helper to a bookkeeper, and so start your working life as a sub-bookkeeper. Allegedly that's the only word in the English language with 4 contiguous letter pairs - your introduction to the accountant's private double entry system.