From my previous career in Aerospace I joined HMRC at age 40 as a Band O providing support in computer accounts interrogation. Within 2 years I had started the inspector training programme which lead me eventually to undertake Tax Professional training becoming a fully qualified G7 Inspector. This had opened up many opportunities from working as a Customer Compliance Manager where I with support from tax specialists I get to directly influence large banks into more compliant approach to tax and closer working with HMRC. It has also taken me into exotic tax areas such as Petroleum Revenue Tax (tax on oil extraction) to working with Film/TV production companies. I have also built good friendships with my colleagues at work.

As customer compliance manager it is my job to build a relationship with some of our largest Groups to both influence and assist them in being more tax compliant. As part of that role I work closely with Tax Specialist who are experts in their specific tax field to access and rate the customers approach to tax and ability to get their tax right each time. This is done by having sometimes difficult conversations where we are open about our concerns and identify areas where we feel they are failing and can improve. Not all conversations are difficult, we have many low risk customers who are willing to engage in a two way conversation to seek a path to ensuring they are paying the right amount of tax at the right time.

Within HMRC I am lucky to work with a very diverse group of colleagues. This provides a constant opportunity to learn about the best way I can engage and support my colleagues which also feeds into the great relationships that can be built with colleagues. As a disabled member of staff I have always been impressed with the support I get from both my manager and colleagues so that I can do my job without worrying about problems. Though I deal mainly with groups in Finance, this still leaves a lot of variety as there are so many different fields and and approaches across my customers. From international branches to household named groups. I am constantly learning from my customers and no meeting is ever the same and always brings up new challenges. I get a great feeling of accomplishment form building honest relationships with my customers, especially when I can influence their approach to tax. I am constantly learning different approaches to achieving this, learning both from customers and colleagues. which enables me to constantly learn and improve.

It is important to keep trying. Not everybody will make it first time, I did not when applying for Tax Professional Training, but I was put on a reserve list and called up later. Many do not make it first time but they do make it second time round. The process for recruitment can be long, but do not get disheartened, this is to give everybody the best chance of being accepted. If you can, get feedback and consider it for future applications. Feedback will often point our your weak area that can easily be improved with a bit of practice. If you do get on a training programme, be aware that though tough, they want you to succeed and will do everything they can to support you in achieving the end goal. Do say if you need extra support, they cannot provide it unless you tell them you need it. I am dyslexic and they took this into account for exams providing computer rather than writing and also extra time for reading.

Petroleum Revenue tax is a very specific tax applying only to oil & gas extraction from oil fields approved before March 1993. This had very high tax rates (75%) with the intent it would be repaid to help cover the costs of decommissioning the fields. Owners of the fields changed a lot over the intervening years and this makes for very complex calculation for tax repayment that need to follow strict rules. I created simple flow charts for the ownership changes, providing a much simpler method for identifying how repayments would flow back and ensuring much simpler calculations that could be easily completed in the flowchart to ensure correct allocations. I checked an existing calculation prepared the old way and managed to spot a minor error in the calculation that would have resulted in HMRC repaying £100m tax which was not correctly due. It also meant that future tax repayments would be calculated correctly and it was easier to check and follow the calculation to spot any similar errors.