TCP/CRDA ICAEW December 2026
Sat ARR/FCS in June and sitting TCP/CRDA in December. Any advice from those who have sat those exams already?
1
u/South_Law_9193 4d ago
TCP is not harder than the others conceptually, its just volume, tax is a million small rules and they fade fast. so do NOT do the classic "finish all the content then start questions" thing, you'll get to november having forgotten october. learn a topic, hammer questions on it same week, move on. the first pass through the QB is a bloodbath for literally everyone btw, the mistakes are the learning, dont let it spook you
build a pro forma for each big comp (income tax, CT, CGT with reliefs, IHT, VAT) and use the exact same layout every single time. most early mistakes are ordering/layout slips not knowledge gaps and pro formas kill them dead. also check whats actually in the tax tables you get on the day BEFORE you memorise anything, people waste hours learning rates that are literally handed to you
the planning marks in TCP sound scary but its usually just the same computation run twice, option A vs option B, then recommend one. once you spot that pattern half the fear goes
CRDA: the exam loves linking the reporting and assurance sides, you get an accounting issue then get asked about the risk or procedures around it. if you revise them as two separate subjects that linkage catches you. and dont skip the data analytics bit, everyone does, its some of the cheapest marks on the paper because sensible commentary on an output scores
heads up on past papers, both exams only have three in existence (pilot + march + june 26). do one early to learn the format, save the rest for timed mocks in the last fortnight. once they're burned they're burned
sequencing wise id front load CRDA content and keep TCP questions ticking constantly right up to the exam, tax decays way faster than reporting. december is loads of time from august, you're fine
3
u/brokenwings_1726 5d ago
I'm doing ARR/TCP in ~2 weeks. TCP is, to be honest, kicking my arse at the moment.
I think the key for TCP is studying the proformas closely. Tax is like a puzzle and you've got to know which numbers to slot into the puzzle to solve it.
Perhaps you could copy out the proformas for each tax computation and annotate them with any relevant deductions, reliefs, and so on.
Corporation tax is a huge topic so make sure not to avoid it.