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VATupdate Newsletter Week 26 2024

Career

As VAT specialists, we have a pretty good deal. We get a behind-the-scenes look at companies, learning about different types of products and services, and everything needed to produce, manufacture, market, and sell them. Eventually, that ends up as numbers in a VAT Return, but our job really involves being part of the business, and not just numbers.

Tax directors, colleagues, and even people around you may think differently. “VAT is just compliance,” is something that is often heard. And somehow, that’s true as well. But even when you’re filling in numbers and submitting them to the tax authorities, you need to know what’s behind them.

I believe that VAT people are (or should be) entrepreneurs. They want to investigate, engage, and understand. We are not just ‘number crushers’. Otherwise, we would have chosen a different career, wouldn’t we? Why did you choose to become a VAT specialist?

Society tells us a lot about what we should want in a career and what the possibilities are—which is weird because I’m pretty sure society knows very little about any of this. When it comes to careers, society is like your uncle who traps you at a birthday party and goes on a 15-minute, mostly incoherent, unsolicited advice monologue, and you tune out almost the whole time because it’s super clear he has very little idea what he’s talking about and that everything he says is like 45 years outdated.

Society is like that uncle, and conventional wisdom is like his stories and advice. Except in this case, instead of tuning it out, we pay attention to every word, and then we make major career and life decisions based on what he says. Kind of a weird thing for us to do, because it means that you may make choices that affect your life without really knowing or understanding the consequences.

I chose VAT because I was inspired by a professor at university. Granted, I chose to go to university because society (my parents, and in fact my uncle) urged me to do so, and I couldn’t think of a better alternative. For me, that worked out fine. And in any case, I probably wouldn’t be able to do anything else besides VAT, even if I wanted to.

I hope that all of you also had someone inspiring you to choose VAT as your profession. At VATupdate.com, we try to motivate everyone to like VAT. Because, if you look outside, VAT is all around you! And let’s face it, talking about VAT might not make you the life of the party, but at least you’ll never run out of things to complain about.

If you have any comments, questions, or ideas that you want to share with us, please send us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment under the posts of this newsletter on LinkedIn.


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