A Day in the Life: Tax Trainee

Name of Employer: Grant Thornton
Location (city): London
Name of Employee: Nikita Ruia
Title: Tax Trainee
Department/Division: Corporate Tax
Number of years at firm: 2 Years
Number of years in current role: >2 years
Degree(s): BA Law

A Day in the Life of a Tax Trainee at Grant Thornton

8:30am: – I start work at 9am, but usually get in at 8:30 to check emails. I’m a trainee so I do compliance work from day to day. I sometimes go out to the client.

9:30am: – In the first hour I’ll answer my emails and get back to clients.

10:30am: – Much of the day involves looking through information and checking outstanding queries that need to be resolved. In that time there’ll be responses that have come back. I’ll prepare submission letters for different clients. I sometimes go out to the client, sit in meetings and write down the minutes. The next day I might be on site preparing tax computations. Then I follow up all the work. There’s a lot of liaising with the Audit department too.

Noon: – I usually take lunch at about 12:45. Most people go usually as a group, and there are regular team lunches. Otherwise people go in twos and threes at different times.

When we’re at a client’s office we may eat with the client or go somewhere locally.

1pm: – Audit send me the final accounts, I check the computations, send them to the client. Then they are sent to the Revenue.

2pm – 4pm: A lot of the day is spent answering different issues, legal problems and so on, so I’d spend an hour or so doing research. It’s not robotic work - different technical issues arise for each client that I look into, so I constantly have to research different issues.

5pm: – The day ends at 5:30 and I usually leave around 6. On a tight deadline we might work until later, but that’s very rare. You never feel that you have to stay because other people are. People often go to the pub down the road after work especially on Thursdays and Fridays.

There are a number of parties around Christmas time; we always have a department activity day in the Summer and opportunities to volunteer in the community days throughout the year.

Because I’m revising for exams I’ve been out for the last week on study leave.