Advisory skills

Advisory skills

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Hi

I am a tax assistant and I stuggle writing short concise technical emails. I work in a big tax team and when a member of the team has a technical query, I look it up and expected to summarise the answer in an email.

I am ok with looking up things in the legislation, but when it comes to summarising the answer in an email with a yes or no I really find this difficult and struggle to structure the email so it answers the question with the relevant technical backing below that.

Does anyone have any templates or advice on how to approach this?

Many thanks in advance.

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By petersaxton
28th Jun 2012 20:00

Templates?

That's the last thing you want.

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By cathygrimmer
29th Jun 2012 10:05

Practice makes perfect!

It is something which will improve with practice. And, hopefully, a superior who can give you useful feedback! There is also a massive difference between putting together an advisory email for your colleagues and for a client. The latter will need to be explained in layman's (layperson's?) terms. For your colleagues you can just refer to an Act and a section - for clients it may be better to just say 'there is legislation which says.....' as they tend to glaze over sometimes if you make specific references to legislation!

Also don't forget that there isn't always a Yes/No answer. I remember getting really hung up on this when I was younger. I can be a bit of a perfectionist and always wanted to give a definitive answer. But some tax issues are myriad shades of grey. However, I have found that lay clients and accountant clients appreciate being both given the for and against arguments for such issues and my opinion of how to go forward (which is not the same as saying the answer is 'X'). So don't be afraid to say if there isn't a correct answer - or to make it clear if you have a view which differs with HMRC's guidance (as long as you explain the consequences of diverging from the guidance).

It can be helpful if you are researching for others to set the email out in the order of your thought processes ending with your conclusion. Clients may just want a paragraph giving them the answer and the thinking behind it (which they probably won't read!) following afterwards. If you are doing this for your colleagues, why not ask them how they want it and if they are happy with the way you are setting it out; Do they want more references to legsilation or less? Do they want you to cut and paste the legislation at the end of the emai? Or would they prefer a link to legislation or guidance? They may want different things. I know which of my accountant clients want a simple yes/no answer and which want a belt and braces job so they can check I'm right and I tailor my advice accordingly.

Not sure I've been much help! I've been trying to cast my mind back to when I started doing what you are doing - but it's so long ago that my brain hurts now!

Good luck

Cathy

[email protected]

 

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By Jimess
30th Jun 2012 16:46

I always break it down into sections:

1. Define the issue - i.e set out your understanding of what the issue is.

2. Set out the facts.

3. Set out the legislation/options/opportunies/limitations and their effects

4. Set out the proposal or advice and define the caveats

I use this skeleton for all sorts of advisory work, how wordy and technical you make it depends on the technical ability/level of understanding of the recipient and the complexity of the issue.  I like to include example computations and illustrative figures in section 3 where relevant, but sometimes the whole thing can be simply a few sentences, but my thought processes behind that would have followed the four steps.  I would also add that if you are providing advice on anything other than the very simplest of matters it is essential to keep details of your reference sources and as much as possible have a copy of the case/legislation section/article etc on file so that you can refer back if necessary. 

In developing this I went right back to my school days when our science teacher drilled into us the importance of setting out our research in a practical and analytical way - i.e identify the problem and what you are trying to achieve, state the facts and resources, explain the method, show the results and explain their limitations and set out your conclusion.  It works for all sorts of problem solving scenarios.

I also make use of "pros and cons" tables where I set out the relevant advantages and disadvantages of a given scenario that will enable the recipient to work through their decision making.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards

 

 

 

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