Tips for ACCA F1 to F3
No exam tips available – Multiple choice questions cover entire syllabus.
ACCA Exam Tips for Paper F4 English
Q1 Rules of interpretation, literal and golden
Q2 Privity of contract and intention to create legal relations
Q3 Terms, representation, implied and express
Q4 Appointment, powers and duties of a plc company secretary
Q5 Legality of dividends and consequences OR treasury shares
Q6 Duty of directors to promote the success of the company
Q7 Duties of principals and agents
Q8 Advert scenario, invitation, offer, counter offer, breach
Q9 Partnership dissolution
Q10 Fraudulent and wrongful trading OR Bribery Act
Q2 Privity of contract and intention to create legal relations
Q3 Terms, representation, implied and express
Q4 Appointment, powers and duties of a plc company secretary
Q5 Legality of dividends and consequences OR treasury shares
Q6 Duty of directors to promote the success of the company
Q7 Duties of principals and agents
Q8 Advert scenario, invitation, offer, counter offer, breach
Q9 Partnership dissolution
Q10 Fraudulent and wrongful trading OR Bribery Act
ACCA Exam Tips for Paper F4 Global
Q1 Role of ICC and WTO
Q2 Meetings and resolutions
Q3 Arbitration, the need for the agreement to be in writing
Q4 Sale of Goods, anticipatory breach and remedies
Q5 Company statutory registers OR treasury shares
Q6 Grounds for the Court to issue a compulsory winding-up order
Q7 Incoterms
Q8 Contract and breach
Q9 Partnership dissolutions
Q10 Fraudulent and wrongful trading OR Bribery Act
Possible others
- Corporate governance, neds vs execs
- Lifting the veil
Q2 Meetings and resolutions
Q3 Arbitration, the need for the agreement to be in writing
Q4 Sale of Goods, anticipatory breach and remedies
Q5 Company statutory registers OR treasury shares
Q6 Grounds for the Court to issue a compulsory winding-up order
Q7 Incoterms
Q8 Contract and breach
Q9 Partnership dissolutions
Q10 Fraudulent and wrongful trading OR Bribery Act
Possible others
- Corporate governance, neds vs execs
- Lifting the veil
ACCA Tips for Paper F5
- Throughput Accounting
- Linear programming (or Decision making under uncertainty, with a small decision tree)
- Mix & Yield Variances
- Performance measurement – financial, non-financial, and divisionalised
- Budgeting / Learning curves
There will be 5 compulsory questions, each worth 20 marks. It is likely that one of these will be entirely written, with the others being a mixture of discursive and numerical requirements. This means that it is essential to practise written questions as well as numerical ones when studying for ACCA F5. The syllabus is very broad, an understanding of all areas is necessary to pass the exam. It would be reasonable to expect one topic from each of the five syllabus areas to be tested. The examiner has repeated stated that question spotting is not a suitable way to approach F5.
Even with this in mind, there are some general themes which crop up in most exams: variances have always been tested historically. Given the syllabus changes for 2013, it is likely that mis and yield and/or operational variances will be tested.
ACCA Tips for Paper F6
Each new round of annual exams will always include topics that the F6 examining team have written about in their published technical articles, most notably in the Finance Act (FA) Update article (FA 2012) and in any new technical articles. For 2013 we have so far two such articles entitled Motor Cars and Benefits respectively.Although any and all of what appears in the FA Update may feature in this year’s exams particular attention should be paid to new legislation and major changes to existing legislation.
In this respect note specifically:
(1) Overseas branches and the new exemption election, noting very carefully the worked example on evaluating whether or not the election would have been worthwhile for a company to have made.
(2) The recent reductions in the main rates of Corporation Tax (CT) mean that either a marginal or large company whose Chargeable Accounting Period spans two Financial Years will require a split calculation of their CT Liability. Again work the examples given. Note if this were tested within Question 2 then as Capital Allowances (CA) are not examinable for such a company straddling FY 2011 and FY 2012 then a detailed CA computation would need to be performed for an unincorporated trader presumably in Question 1.
(3) The changes in car benefits may be tested in a standard Employment Income assessment and also contain other benefits as per the Benefits article. Given the separate detailed article on Motor Cars this may instead form the basis of the more challenging style of question now favoured by the examining team where the candidate is required to think very carefully to answer a more unusual stated requirement.
This may involve for example evaluating the tax position of both the business (unincorporated or incorporated), and if separate, the individual, regarding the provision of a car and fuel to an employee or proprietor. This may involve elements of Income Tax, Corporation Tax and NIC’s. Once more work carefully through the exam standard example at the end of the article.
Income Tax – Question 1 probably 30 marks, and possibly part of Questions 4 or 5
Chargeable Gains – Question 3 for 15 marks and possible involvement in any other question
NOTE:
Students should never rely on F6 exam tips from any source as exam success is based on a sound knowledge of the basic rules that underpin the computations required for each tax and the ability to apply this knowledge within the 3 hours and 15 minutes available.
This is based on considerable practice of past examination questions which have been updated for Finance Act 2012 and by sitting a mock examination in the allotted time. It can be of little surprise that students fail exams if the last time they sat such an exam was when they failed at the previous sitting!
If any of the areas tipped should appear then this, if you are prepared, should be a bonus – you should not be expecting these areas and then be disappointed when they do not appear and therefore be immediately at a psychological low in the exam room!
In this respect note specifically:
(1) Overseas branches and the new exemption election, noting very carefully the worked example on evaluating whether or not the election would have been worthwhile for a company to have made.
(2) The recent reductions in the main rates of Corporation Tax (CT) mean that either a marginal or large company whose Chargeable Accounting Period spans two Financial Years will require a split calculation of their CT Liability. Again work the examples given. Note if this were tested within Question 2 then as Capital Allowances (CA) are not examinable for such a company straddling FY 2011 and FY 2012 then a detailed CA computation would need to be performed for an unincorporated trader presumably in Question 1.
(3) The changes in car benefits may be tested in a standard Employment Income assessment and also contain other benefits as per the Benefits article. Given the separate detailed article on Motor Cars this may instead form the basis of the more challenging style of question now favoured by the examining team where the candidate is required to think very carefully to answer a more unusual stated requirement.
This may involve for example evaluating the tax position of both the business (unincorporated or incorporated), and if separate, the individual, regarding the provision of a car and fuel to an employee or proprietor. This may involve elements of Income Tax, Corporation Tax and NIC’s. Once more work carefully through the exam standard example at the end of the article.
Income Tax – Question 1 probably 30 marks, and possibly part of Questions 4 or 5
- Preparation of Income Tax Computation(s) possibly for spouses / civil partners with exempt income, joint income and separate sources of employment income and trading profits
- Employment Income to include use of own car or company car
- Trading profit to require a detailed CA computation (if not tested in Q.2)
- NIC’s payable by each spouse
- Preparation of CT Computation for CAP straddling FY’s 2011 and 2012
- Adjustment of profits
- Operating overseas through a subsidiary or a branch and evaluation of whether exemption election for overseas branches worthwhile
- Use of losses including group relief and implications of gains group membership
- Transition from normal due date to Quarterly Instalment Payments
Chargeable Gains – Question 3 for 15 marks and possible involvement in any other question
- Calculation of CGT liability for individual involving 18% and 28% tax rates along with gains qualifying for entrepreneurs’ relief 10% tax rate
- Availability and use of entrepreneurs’ relief and gift relief
- VAT return with output tax issues on discounts and impaired debts and recoverability of input tax including entertaining expenses and purchases of plant and machinery and cars
- Group VAT registration and advantages and disadvantages of companies joining
- Compulsory registration
- Compute transfer of value
- Compute IHT on lifetime transfers arising on death with possible involvement of CLT made more than 7 years before death followed by computation of IHT on Death Estate
- Income Tax losses
- Assessments of partners with a change in partners
- Self Assessment
NOTE:
Students should never rely on F6 exam tips from any source as exam success is based on a sound knowledge of the basic rules that underpin the computations required for each tax and the ability to apply this knowledge within the 3 hours and 15 minutes available.
This is based on considerable practice of past examination questions which have been updated for Finance Act 2012 and by sitting a mock examination in the allotted time. It can be of little surprise that students fail exams if the last time they sat such an exam was when they failed at the previous sitting!
If any of the areas tipped should appear then this, if you are prepared, should be a bonus – you should not be expecting these areas and then be disappointed when they do not appear and therefore be immediately at a psychological low in the exam room!
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