Graduate Blog

Sarah – Consulting Dublin

Hi everyone,

Apologies, it has been a while since my last blog! Since I last wrote, I have been working on a new aspect of the project I have been on since August of last year – it involves designing the organisation structure of a department within our client’s organisation. My colleague and I designed three high level organisation design options and recently presented these to our client. The meeting went really well and we are now delving into more detail based on the feedback we received in order to present our options to the CEO. We are also beginning to create a training strategy which we will soon propose to our client, and in the next couple of weeks we will begin work on defining high level job specifications. I’ll let you know how this goes over the coming weeks.

On the social side of things, there have been a number of events since my last blog. A big group of us – about 28 – went on a ski trip to Mont Blanc at the end of January for a long weekend. It was a great trip and there were not too many injuries despite the thick fog which lasted for two whole days...already looking forward to next years! As well as this, the annual pool competition was held last Thursday – unfortunately I couldn’t make it but I heard it was a great night...and the next upcoming event will be taking place two weekends from now – early each year the associates organise a weekend away, so no doubt it will be a success yet again!

Bye for now...

Aoife – Tax Dublin

Hi all,

Now that January has passed, I wanted to give you a quick overview on what I have been working on over the past few weeks and a general update on what has been going on in the tax practice recently.

As I mentioned in my last blog, January is a very busy month for us as we carry out several corporation tax sign-offs. This tasks involves reviewing or providing the corporation tax figure for inclusion in a company's financial statements. I visited a client based in Maynooth at the end of January in order to carry out such a review at the client premises. I was accompanied by an Assistant and Specialist 2 and we spent the day running through the information provided by the client and drafting the corporation tax computations for the group companies. Face to face meetings are always very beneficial and definitely help to strengthen the relationship between PwC and our client contact. We continued our work from the office the following week and completed the assignment recently. The next step in the process will be a review of the signed financial statements so that we can finalise our computations and prepare the corporation tax return "Form CT1", for submission to Revenue.

I am currently preparing for assisting in an internal training session on stamp duty which is due to take place next week. Three members of the stamp duty team will be delivering the training session to those at Manager and above levels. We will be providing an update on recent proposed changes to the stamp duty legislation and giving an overview recent stamp duty work carried out across the firm. The entire tax practice will be attending a training session this afternoon on the Finance Bill 2012. This is an annual event which is hosted away from the Spencer Dock office. It is a session which provides a good overview on the various changes proposed in the recently issued Finance Bill. As the training covers all tax heads affected by the changes, it is a good way for us in corporation tax, for example, to hear about amendments to the VAT or personal tax legislation.

Finally, PwC is involved in an initiative called the "People Giving Scheme" which provides an opportunity for employees to donate a sum to five chosen charities through their payroll every month. The five charities who benefit change every year. We elect five new charities at the end of each year who will benefit from the People Giving Scheme the following year. Every year a substantial sum is collected and divided between the five very worthy causes. Representatives from the five chosen charities from 2011 will be visiting the office tomorrow and receiving the proceeds of last year's donations. I have been asked, along with some other PwC representatives to meet with the charities tomorrow so I am very much looking forward to this.

Bye for now,

Aoife

Catherine – Assurance South East

Hi all,

Apologies it’s been soo long since my last blog, January has been a very busy month in work. I spent the last four weeks on the audit of an Irish subsidiary of a French group. It was quite a large audit as the company had two trades which meant that we had to do everything twice in order to get comfort over both trades. A lot of the company’s customers and suppliers were also located outside of Ireland so it was a bit of a challenge when we sent letters to confirm amounts owing at the year end, there were times when I had to use some of my leaving certificate French! This makes the job interesting however as you face new challenges every day, and getting over these challenges is very satisfying.

I’m currently back in the office and I’ll be here for the next few weeks working on some small audits and preparing accounts for one of our clients. I enjoy this side of the work because when you are preparing accounts for a client you usually take a folder of bank statements and invoices for example and after a few days you end up with a set of accounts! I better get back to the work now as we’re still all very busy so until the next time, thanks for reading my blog!

Adam – Consulting Dublin

Hi everyone,

Really sorry it’s been so long since my last post but I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone after Christmas! Since I spoke with you last I spent two weeks back in the office working on a proposal and I have just started a new secondment with one of the mobile networks in Ireland!

The proposal work was really interesting and it was a completely different experience to working on site with a client. Basically if an organisation needs some work completed or have a particular project that they do not have the skills or resources to complete themselves they will put the job out to tender and it will be up to firms like ourselves to put together a proposal document that outlines how we can help them and answering any specific requests the company may have. It really brought back memories of college assignments except instead of the lecturer setting the guidelines this time it’s a real life organisation!

After Christmas I was seconded to a major mobile network in Ireland. I joined their financial planning and control team as a revenue analyst. This is a great opportunity to gain some first hand experience in a finance function and it’s also great to get some experience within a new industry. On top of that I am actually starting to apply some knowledge from my CIMA exams to my day to day role.

Speaking of exams, I started my first lectures last week as the next set of exams are in May. If I get these I will only have one exam left so I intend putting the head down over the next few weeks to try and get them out of the way…….although I wont know what to be doing with my evenings after that!

Anyway, I hope your all well and we shall catch up soon!

Cheers,

Adam

Brian – Tax Dublin

Hi all,

Just back from Rome - you have to make the most of your free weekends since a lot of the time they are taken up with lectures!

Since my last update I have been engaged in a lot of employment related tax work. You may have seen a lot of Revenue advertisements on TV over the last few weeks reminding employers about the upcoming P35 filing deadline of 15 February (23 February if filing through Revenue’s Online System (ROS)), so I have been busy doing Payroll calculations and helping to prepare P35 Returns for clients.

Our colleagues in the PwC Poland firm have updated their annual ‘Personal Tax in the European Union’ report which details the average net incomes for employees across Europe so I was engaged to complete a survey detailing the personal income tax and social security burdens for employees in Ireland for 2011 which was interesting. The results which are published annually, make for interesting reading.

The final period CGT payments deadline was 31 January last so I was busy doing CGT calculations in respect of individuals who had made disposals of assets both in Ireland and abroad which brought them within the remit of Irish CGT. I had a lot of face to face meetings with individuals in order to get details of their asset disposals and also try as best as possible to reduce their CGT liabilities by offsetting losses on capital disposals against gains since everyone wants to try and minimise their tax liabilities!

A large amount of my department will be going on study leave for the Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 exams with the Irish Taxation Institute soon and as a result the workload for those remaining will be increased! I have FAE block release lectures starting in 3 weeks so it will be nice to get out of the office for a while.

We also had two new Co-Op students join our department recently and they will be with us for 9 months – there’s a constant flow of people joining the firm at present as the firm continues its recruitment drive for both graduate and experienced hires!

So until my next update – take care!