I qualified from a small firm 25 years ago and susequently went to a larger firm. Suffering a bit of financial hardship 20 years ago my subs cheque bounced and I could not pay them. I therefore lost my membership. At the time when I phoned the Institure to try and sort it out I encountered what felt like fairly aggressive responses so I left it - moreover they did not even seem to have a record of me although it now turns out the ICAEW had a typo in my DoB.
I continued to work solely in taxation in a large firm and never as a partner so the issue of whether my qualification was current or not never came up and I was very good at applying tax law on behalf of my firm and its clients. The nature of the firm meant we were held out at our grade - Manager, Senior Manager, Director etc not as chartered accountants and in truth we had a whole range of different people supporting tax advice from ex inspectors to CTAs and solicitors. I never described myself as an ACA or chartered accountant - only "tax specialist" or "tax accountant" which is a Revenue term for anyone who does tax. . Work was subject to review / oversight by a partner and mine was always rated very highly. Roll on to now and I've left my firm. I don't need to work but really want to work for many more years. I've been offered a lot of opportunities but rejected them because most people really do expect me to join smaller firms as a partner and I cannot as I do not hold a professional qualification - I have not debated with those practices my situation - I've been invited for a conversation, offered more than one partnership (which I did not expect) and then I've had to decline. With that in mind I decided I'd do a set of professional exams again and have spent the last six months getting through the first half of ACCA exams. It is a mute point whether I ask my last employer to sign off the last three years work I did for them as PER but if I did I would be qualified next spring.
All that said I was proud to do my ACA and I kick myself for never sorting it out. I phoned the ICAEW for one last conversation. This was very different to the rest. I was encourged to reapply. I have no doubt I am technically strong in tax and I've no interest in ver signing a set of accounts but I am concerned the pure time factor of me being out of the ICAEW would lead to me being rejected. I'd happly pay every subscription I've ever missed over and above the regular rejoin fees but I have no sense what the readmission committee would make of it and I do not want to bring problems. Any thoughts from qualified members of the ACCA or ICAEW welcome. I'll be continuing with the ACCA qualification in any event - I'm one of the odd ones who enjoys exams.
Thanks and apologies for the length of this note
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I cant give you any advice on the process of being readmitted. I assume that you kept your CPD fully up to date but wont necessarily have documented it - although if your previous firm was institute regulated then it might be straight forward.
Have you got any other qualifications etc? I know that the institute will let you be a 'student' and be a principle of a firm as long as you have a practicing certificate issued by ACCA, AAT, etc. So, if the ICAEW want you to do a particular exam or something and then fulfil any requirements before beign readmitted then you could be a partner of a firm if you have (for example) current AAT membership. You just wouldn't be able to mention the ACA until you got it back, obviously.
Failing that, as you are currently planning to do ACCA anyway, once you've done that you could always to the ACA 'top up paper' and get your membership back that way I reckon.
I believe you need to wait five years to do the top up paper. I think my biggest concern is how the ICAEW will react to the fact I've spent years in a large firm doing tax. I've never sought to claim to be an ACA since my membership lapsed (albeit I was a member when I joined my firm). I have worked very hard to be ethically on the right side of the line and never been the subject of any concern whatsoever. If you were on the readmission committee would you look at the record of development and training (lets just say extensive), what the referees say and think fair enough the guy wants to come back in the fold or would you say - what - he's worked that long - looks odd to us - rather than let him back in lets see if we can investigate him.
I believe you need to wait five years to do the top up paper. I think my biggest concern is how the ICAEW will react to the fact I've spent years in a large firm doing tax. I've never sought to claim to be an ACA since my membership lapsed (albeit I was a member when I joined my firm). I have worked very hard to be ethically on the right side of the line and never been the subject of any concern whatsoever. If you were on the readmission committee would you look at the record of development and training (lets just say extensive), what the referees say and think fair enough the guy wants to come back in the fold or would you say - what - he's worked that long - looks odd to us - rather than let him back in lets see if we can investigate him.
I was an ACCA partner of an ICAEW firm in my last role. I had to be an associate and pay extra subs but as long as there were more than 50% ACA ownership/control they were happy
I believe that the re-admissions committee lean heavily on the advice/ paperwork produced by the dept that deals with re-admissions. You need to have a detailed conversation with them to establish exactly what is required re CPD proof , o/s fees and other costs
It might just have to be a case of "suck it and see" - the ICAEW will probably be happy to get your subs. If you are "rejected", you just carry on as your are - what have you got to loose.
As a side note on the ACCA, you can't be a student and be engaged in public practice as a principle, so something to perhaps consider.
As I understand it a firm of "Chartered Accountants" under ICAEW rules requires at least 50% of the partners to be ICAEW members and the ownership of the firm to be more than 50% in the hands of ICAEW members.
So why did you turn down partnership offers?
RM
In both cases it was assumed I was either an ACA, ACCA or CTA - the actual conversations involved going to see a panel of partners and then the senior partner and managing partners ostensibly for a Director role. I am not sure if they felt they needed to offer me ptr to attract me or whether they wanted me to take on risk but the next thing I got more than once was a very long agreement for my review including references to confirming professional quals. I think that was standard wording - I did not mislead - it just did not come up in conversations. Technical, markets, staff did but not titles or requirements. I felt the best thing to do was decline and open the role to someone who carried the letters.