Tax Adviser CV Examples & Writing Guide
A tax adviser CV is read for four things: your qualification (CTA, ATT, ACA or ACCA, or none yet), the returns you can prepare and review without help, your volume through the January self assessment peak, and the tax software you know. Put all four in the top third, then prove them with numbers from your own return log.
Tax adviser CV example (senior tax adviser, regional accountancy firm)
One page for a Chartered Tax Adviser with about nine years in tax, now reviewing work rather than only preparing it. The name and firms are invented. Notice the qualification line under the name, the return types spelled out by form, and the volume figures. Those three things are what a tax partner reads before deciding to interview.
Devon Marchetti CTA
Senior Tax Adviser | Owner-Managed Businesses, Partnerships and High-Net-Worth Individuals
Bristol · 0117 496 0134 · d.marchetti@email.com · Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA) · ATT · CPD up to date for 2025
Summary
Chartered Tax Adviser with 9 years in tax, reviewing about 420 returns a year and preparing another 110 of the most complex ones. Handles partnership (SA800), company (CT600) and personal self assessment work for owner-managed businesses in construction, healthcare and property from £1.5m to £50m turnover. Cut a 14-partner LLP client's tax bill by £150k through a capital allowances review, and holds a first-pass review acceptance rate of 91% on preparer work.
Experience
Senior Tax Adviser · Marlowe & Finch (regional accountancy firm, 90 staff, 6 offices), Bristol
Oct 2021 – Present
- Review roughly 420 returns a year (SA100, SA800, CT600 and SA900) prepared by 7 staff and 3 seasonal assistants, and personally prepare about 110 of the most complex returns.
- Manage a client portfolio of 62 businesses and their owners, from £1.5m to £50m turnover, mostly construction, dental and GP practices and property partnerships.
- Cut one 14-partner property LLP's tax bill by £150k over two years through a capital allowances review of fixtures in 6 commercial buildings.
- Rebuilt the firm's partnership return workpaper template, which took average SA800 preparation time from 9.5 hours to 6.8 hours and raised first-pass review acceptance from 78% to 91%.
- Handle HMRC enquiries and correspondence as authorised agent: resolved 34 cases in the last two years, including 9 compliance checks into self assessment returns and 4 VAT assessments, with 29 closed with no additional tax due.
Tax Adviser · Severn Tax & Advisory (12-person practice), Gloucester
Jan 2018 – Sep 2021
- Prepared 260 to 300 returns a year: personal self assessment returns with self-employment and property pages, company and partnership returns and about 20 trust returns.
- Ran the practice's payments on account reminders for 140 clients, cutting late-payment interest and penalty letters from 22 a year to 3.
- Took the lead on the UK property capital gains tax returns introduced in April 2020, filing on time for 48 clients who sold residential property and documenting each relief claim in the file.
- Moved the practice from TaxCalc to IRIS over one summer: converted 380 client files, wrote the internal how-to guide and trained 6 staff before the January deadline.
Tax Assistant · Marlowe & Finch, Bristol
Jan 2017 – Dec 2017
- Prepared 190 personal and 40 business returns in the first year, starting straight into the January peak with 50-hour weeks up to 31 January.
- Cleared 100% of assigned returns before the 31 January self assessment deadline with no late-filing penalties.
- Passed the first ATT papers at the first attempt within 11 months while working full time.
Education
BSc (Hons) Accounting and Finance, 2:1
University in the South West, 2016
A-levels: Maths (A), Economics (A), History (B)
Sixth form college, Bath, 2013
Certifications
- Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA), Chartered Institute of Taxation, 2020
- Taxation Technician (ATT), Association of Taxation Technicians, 2019
- CPD up to date for 2025, including a Professional Conduct in Relation to Taxation (PCRT) refresher
Skills
What a tax partner checks first
A tax hire is a capacity decision made months before the work arrives. Four questions decide it.
- What is your qualification, exactly? CTA, ATT, ACA or ACCA with a tax focus, part-qualified with papers passed, or no tax qualification yet. These are different jobs with different salary bands, so be precise. "Tax adviser" is not a protected title in the UK, which is exactly why firms read the qualification line closely.
- Which returns can you finish without a reviewer standing over you? Name the returns. "SA800s for property LLPs with partner capital accounts" says something. "Business tax returns" does not.
- What is your volume and how did last January go? Returns prepared, returns reviewed, and whether you cleared your assignments before 31 January. A partner is trying to work out how much of a 400-return year you can absorb.
- Which software? Firms are committed to one system and switching costs them real money. Name the ones you have used in production: IRIS, CCH Personal Tax and Corporation Tax, TaxCalc, Taxfiler, Digita, Alphatax or ONESOURCE.
“I need to know two numbers to schedule you: how many returns you got out last season and what your review notes looked like. If a CV says "prepared individual and business tax returns" with no count, I assume forty. Write the count, write the return types, and tell me if you have carried your own client calls.”
CTA, ATT, ACA: how to list your qualification correctly
These are not interchangeable, and a firm will catch a misstatement in the first five minutes. Write exactly what you hold, with the awarding body and the year.
Chartered Tax Adviser (CTA), Chartered Institute of Taxation, 2020. CPD up to date for 2025, including a PCRT refresher. Give the year you qualified and keep your membership current, because members are bound by the institute's professional rules.
CTA candidate: Awareness paper and the Advanced Technical paper passed; Application and Professional Skills paper booked for May 2027. Do not write "CTA" until you are admitted as a member.
Taxation Technician (ATT), Association of Taxation Technicians, 2021. All ATT papers passed and the practical experience requirement completed. CPD current.
Tax assistant with 3 years in personal tax, AAT qualified (MAAT) and studying for the ATT, next papers booked for May 2027. Many firms recruit tax assistants with AAT and fund the ATT from there.
LLM in Taxation, admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales 2019. Say your admission and jurisdiction; tax lawyers, CTAs and chartered accountants all advise on tax, but they are not the same qualification.
A Level 4 financial planning diploma or Chartered Financial Planner status if you advise on personal finance alongside tax. STEP membership (TEP) for trusts and estates work. Neither replaces a CTA or ATT for a tax technical role.
Tax adviser and tax accountant personal statement examples
Three or four lines: qualification, return types, volume, then one result. Use a career objective only for a first January peak or a career change.
Chartered Tax Adviser with 9 years in tax, reviewing about 420 returns a year and preparing 110 of the most complex. Handles SA800, CT600 and personal self assessment work for construction, medical practice and property clients from £1.5m to £50m turnover. Cut one LLP client's tax bill by £150k through a capital allowances review.
CTA and tax manager with 13 years of experience, running a £1.5m fee portfolio and a team of 6. Reviews about 700 returns a year, holds recovery at 94%, and has kept client retention above 96% for four years. Strong on owner-managed business structuring and exit planning.
ACA and CTA with 8 years in corporate tax, currently handling quarterly instalment payments and the annual income tax provision for a £250m manufacturer with 22 group companies. Cut the provision timeline from 11 days to 6 and settled an HMRC VAT assessment for £190k less than the original figure.
Taxation Technician (ATT) with 6 years preparing personal and small business returns, about 380 returns a year, plus handling 40-plus HMRC letters and 5 enquiries. Specialises in self-employed clients, landlords and taxpayers bringing several years of unfiled returns up to date.
Accounting graduate with two ATT papers passed and a summer placement in which 74 self assessment returns were prepared in TaxCalc. Looking for a trainee tax assistant role with a firm that does owner-managed business work, starting before the January 2027 peak.
Bookkeeper with 7 years cleaning up small business books in QuickBooks and Xero, now studying for the ATT (two papers passed) after one January season preparing 120 returns for sole traders and landlords. Comfortable taking a client from a carrier bag of receipts to a filed return.
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Tax CV bullets: weak to strong
The numbers are all in your practice management system, your return log or your notice file. Pull them before you resign.
| Weak | Strong |
|---|---|
| Prepared individual and business tax returns. | Prepared 260 to 300 returns a year: self assessment returns with self-employment and property pages, CT600s, SA800s and about 20 trust returns. |
| Reviewed returns prepared by staff. | Review roughly 420 returns a year from 7 staff and 3 seasonal assistants, and raised first-pass acceptance from 78% to 91% with a rebuilt partnership workpaper template. |
| Identified tax savings for clients. | Cut a 14-partner property LLP's tax bill by £150k over two years through a capital allowances review of fixtures in 6 commercial buildings. |
| Responded to HMRC correspondence. | Resolved 34 HMRC enquiries and letters in two years as authorised agent, including 9 compliance checks into self assessment returns; 29 closed with no additional tax due. |
| Improved processes on the tax team. | Took average SA800 preparation time from 9.5 hours to 6.8 hours by rebuilding the partnership workpaper and standardising the capital account schedule. |
| Helped clients with payments on account. | Ran payments on account reminders for 140 clients and cut late-payment interest and penalty letters from 22 a year to 3. |
| Assisted with a software conversion. | Moved the practice from TaxCalc to IRIS in one summer: converted 380 client files, wrote the internal guide and trained 6 staff before January. |
| Worked long hours during the January peak. | Cleared 100% of assigned returns before the 31 January self assessment deadline across three years, with no late-filing penalties. |
Skills for a tax adviser CV
Be concrete. Return types and software names get found by both the recruiter and the search tool; "tax compliance" gets found by nobody.
- Returns by type: SA100 with the self-employment, property and capital gains pages; SA800; SA900; CT600; P11D and P11D(b); VAT returns; IHT400 if you do estates; the residence and foreign pages if you touch international.
- Technical areas you can actually work in: owner-managed business tax, profit extraction (salary and dividends), incorporation relief, business asset disposal relief, capital allowances and full expensing, partnership profit allocations, the Statutory Residence Test, R&D tax relief, inheritance tax and trusts, corporation tax groups and losses.
- Compliance operations: payments on account, UK property CGT returns, corporation tax instalment payments, P11Ds, Making Tax Digital for VAT and for income tax, agent authorisations.
- Enquiry work: HMRC compliance checks and enquiries, penalty appeals and reasonable excuse claims, Time to Pay arrangements, voluntary disclosures.
- Tax software in production use: IRIS, CCH Personal Tax and Corporation Tax, TaxCalc, Taxfiler, Digita, Alphatax or ONESOURCE for corporate work.
- Research and documentation: Tolley, Croner-i, CCH Online, writing a technical note that supports a position in the file.
- Accounting systems around the return: Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage, FreeAgent, plus Excel work such as pivot tables, lookups and a capital allowances or CGT schedule you built yourself.
- Client and team: explaining a balance due to a client who was expecting a refund, running a planning meeting, coaching an assistant through review notes, holding a deadline in January without dropping quality.
Tax CV with no experience or one January peak
Tax practices take on extra help every autumn for the January self assessment peak, which makes tax one of the easier finance jobs to break into. Firms are not expecting expertise. They are expecting you to hold a deadline, follow a workpaper and not guess.
- 1Start a recognised qualification. AAT or the first ATT papers show commitment, and many firms will fund the rest. Putting "ATT: first papers booked for May 2027" on the page shows you have done your homework.
- 2Learn the self assessment calendar and HMRC's online services for agents: how agent authorisation works, how to read a tax calculation and a statement of account, and the key dates (5 October, 31 January, 31 July). Mention it in your cover letter.
- 3Say where you are with the ATT, CTA, AAT or ACA/ACCA exams, with papers passed and dates. Firms hire heavily on this because it tells them your trajectory.
- 4Count everything you have already prepared. A placement, a season volunteering with a tax charity, a family member's self assessment return, work at a high-street tax return service. Give the number of returns and the software.
- 5Show you can handle volume and detail under a deadline. Bookkeeping, payroll, bank cashier work, an audit placement, even a busy retail Christmas with a till count all read as evidence.
- 6Name the software you have touched, even from a course or a placement, and say which. "Prepared 74 self assessment returns in TaxCalc during a summer placement" is the single strongest line an entry-level tax CV can carry.
Prepared 118 self assessment returns, including 34 for sole traders and 12 for landlords, over one season at a high-street tax return service, working in TaxCalc with a 6% return-for-correction rate against a 10% office average.
Completed volunteer training with a tax charity and prepared 62 free returns and HMRC letters for people on low incomes and older taxpayers over 10 weeks, with every return reviewed by a qualified adviser before filing.
Maintained the books for 28 small businesses in QuickBooks Online, closed each month within 8 working days, and produced the year-end trial balance and fixed asset schedule the external accountant used to prepare the accounts and returns.
Format, length and keywords
- One or two pages up to about 10 years; two is the usual UK length once you have a client portfolio and a team. Never three.
- Put your qualification line under your name: CTA, ATT, ACA or ACCA and the year. Firms check it with the professional body.
- Single column, plain headings, no tables or graphics. Accountancy firms use applicant tracking systems that mangle columns, and partners print CVs.
- Mirror the advert's words: "owner-managed business", "personal tax", "corporation tax", "self assessment", "partnership", "LLP", "capital gains tax", "inheritance tax", "high-net-worth", "review", "HMRC enquiries", "CTA", "ATT qualified", "IRIS", "CCH", "SA800".
- Include return volumes for every tax job. A tax CV without counts reads as a junior CV regardless of the years on it.
- PDF unless the portal asks for Word. Name the file with your name and qualification.
One thing specific to tax: say what you want your January to look like. Hours expectations vary enormously between a national firm, a 12-person practice and an in-house corporate team, and both sides waste time when that is not discussed. A line in your cover letter about the season you are looking for saves a round of interviews.
Frequently asked questions
What should a tax adviser put on a CV?
Your qualification and the year (CTA, ATT, ACA or ACCA), the return types you can prepare and review, your volume per year, and the tax software you have used in production. Then add one or two results with a £ figure, such as an assessment reduced or a process that cut preparation hours.
What skills do you put on a tax accountant CV?
Return preparation and review by type (SA100, SA800, SA900, CT600, P11D), technical areas such as profit extraction, capital allowances, capital gains tax and business asset disposal relief, HMRC enquiry work, named tax software, research tools like Tolley and Croner-i, and Xero, QuickBooks and Excel for the work around the return.
Do you need to be a Chartered Tax Adviser to work in tax?
No. Tax advice is not a regulated profession in the UK in the way law or audit is, and many tax advisers are ATTs, chartered accountants or experienced practitioners without a tax-specific qualification. What differs is the work you are trusted with and your salary band; CTA is the senior specialist qualification and many firms expect it for manager roles. Anyone giving tax advice as a business also needs anti-money laundering supervision.
How do you write a tax assistant CV with no experience?
Start AAT or the first ATT papers and put the dates on your CV, count every return you have prepared including placements and tax charity volunteering, and name the software. Say where you are with your exams, and use any job where you handled volume and detail under a deadline.
How long should a tax CV be?
One or two pages for up to roughly 10 years of experience, and two once you manage a client portfolio and staff. Volume figures and return types earn their space; long descriptions of the compliance process do not.
Should a tax CV use a career objective or a personal statement?
A personal statement, unless this is your first January peak or you are changing career, in which case a three-line career objective explains the move. Either way, open with your qualification and put a number in the first two lines.
When is the best time to apply for tax jobs?
Late summer through autumn, when firms staff up for the January self assessment peak, and February to March, when people move on after 31 January. Applying in January is possible but firms are buried, and interviews slow down until the deadline passes.
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How this page was made: a first draft was written with AI assistance from cvplex's example library, then edited and fact-checked by the cvplex Careers Team. Examples are fictional composites; numbers are illustrative. Report an error via the editorial policy page.