It’s been busy times in tax since my last post! 1 October is approaching with lightening speed and the team have been working consistently since the 20 May budget to make sure our clients have the knowledge and tools to cope with the coming changes; personal tax rates and GST rate rise to name two of the major ones.

One thing I like about tax is that the rules are far from set in concrete.  There is never a shortage of training opportunities and information to keep us all at the top of our game.  As a graduate I participate in a weekly training program called ‘Tax Skills 1’ which focus on a different aspect of tax each week – tomorrow we are looking at Payments to Non-resident Contractors.  Although preparation for the sessions often requires a late night on Monday and the 8am Tuesday start can be a struggle, these sessions are a key learning tool for us tax kids. 

On a social front there have been lots of events; my team had a bowling challenge followed by dinner at Lone Star which brought out the competitive side of a few of us!  We had our monthly firm drinks – with a frat party theme which was a favourite with a keg, table tennis tables and punch making an appearance!

To see the last of the cold and miserable winter days out, a few of us headed up to Ravi’s where some of the boys took on the Ravi’s kitchen in a spice challenge! There were a few nerves as the boys watched a seasoned looking curry connoisseur at a nearby table sweat!  However, they stepped up to the challenge and with the help of a few bottles of water dominated their curries no sweat (well not too much…), Deloitte 1, Ravi’s 0!  

Sport has also been in full swing, with the first day of spring (my birthday!) passing and bringing with it a fitness buzz in anticipation of summer!  Between lunchtime marathon training runs, Deloitte taking out the Auckland big four rugby tournament, subfootball, touch and hockey teams being formed there will be some buff accountants hitting the beaches in the coming months!!

I hope life is starting to get some form of normality back for those in Christchurch and that the aftershocks are starting to subside! The Deloitte Christchurch Office was shaken and sustained some damage to the air conditioning and lifts but reopened on Wednesday 8 September. I have also been really impressed with the student body in Christchurch getting together to help the community in cleanup efforts.  If any of you reading this have been involved, awesome job :) !  

Cheers, Anna 

Hi, my name is Anna.

I joined Deloitte New Zealand this year as a grad. I am based in the Auckland office and am part of a corporate team in Tax. I’m looking forward to sharing my experience and giving you an insight into my life as a tax grad at Deloitte.

Induction, tax training, beach barbeques, tax new years (31 March for all you budding tax geeks), abacus training, the mid winter ball, graduation, indoor netball, volleyball and some tax returns have all been in the mix making for an exciting past 5 months! Luckily Deloitte bloggers Michelle and Lucy have been keeping you all in the loop, otherwise I would have a huge amount of catching up to do.

The last week has been a busy one where ‘work life balance’ was definitely the key. In addition to a busy week of tax returns to meet some tight deadlines there have been a number of social events helping keep away the winter blues.

The week started for me boarding the 5.45am train from Orakei (who knew trains even ran that early!) to set up for the FIFA world cup final breakfast at the Auckland office. Football fever had been evident over the last few weeks with the fantasy football league, sweepstake and the odd avid England supporter providing numerous opportunities for office banter. By 6.30am kickoff we had a dedicated but somewhat sleepy audience, coffees in hand ready to cheer on the next World Cup champions. The half time croissants, danishes and other breakfast delicacies were a definite winner. With Spain beating Netherlands in extra time it was an exciting start to the week. Celebrations finished just in time to head down to our respective floors and catch up on what antics our team members had got up to that weekend, and discuss our workflow for the coming week.

Soccer hasn’t been the only sport of choice for the Auckland grads over the last few months. Two Deloitte indoor netball teams competed in the autumn league at Action Indoor in Newmarket. Our creatively named teams Deloitte Blue (AKA Audit, A&A and Consulting) and Deloitte Green (AKA Tax) have had a solid season with games every Wednesday night from March to July. The games gave us all a good opportunity to catch up with each other and show the other corporate teams what we’re made of. The Blues narrowly missed out on third place while the Green team fought hard in the final but came off second best to our rival team ‘Wipeout’. Our second place effort earned us some very unique purple t-shirts with ‘Satisfaction Guaranteed’ in blazing across the front – keep an eye out for these bad boys Friday nights in the Auckland CBD!

Friday night was also sport filled with football themed monthly work drinks followed with an end the season BYO dinner to celebrate the end of our indoor netball season. The BYO involved some very tasty Thai food, a few bottles of celebratory wine and a sneaky bottle or two of ‘Bigfoot’ incurring a $10 corkage penalty as the owner failed to pass it off as rosè. It was a good night to wrap up the season. We have entered a team in winter grade so I will keep you posted on how the slightly more creatively named ‘Net Assets’ go.

The sporting theme continued on Saturday night when a few of the tax grads took the opportunity to attend the annual pub golf flat crawl organised by a number of auditors. Although the event wasn’t specifically a ‘Deloitte event’ it gave us the opportunity to network with another service line and get to know some of the auditors in a more social setting. Diamond vests, cheesecutters and golf gloves were all on display the night began at a flat in Ponsonby. A party bus picked everyone up and moved us to the second of four flats, the beginnings of a great night for all involved!

I can say that I’m looking forward to a quieter week on the social front, and getting stuck into some tax compliance work as queries have begun to come back and the returns I’m currently working on are well underway.

Cheers, Anna