ACCA Taxation (TX-UK) tests your ability to apply UK tax law across income tax, capital gains tax, corporation tax, VAT and inheritance tax, using a computation-heavy exam that changes every year with the Finance Act.
It’s session-based, sat quarterly, and structurally similar to PM: a mix of objective test and written computation.
Quick summary
- TX-UK is a 3-hour, session-based exam: Section A (15 OT questions, 30 marks), Section B (3 scenario cases with 5 OT questions each, 30 marks), Section C (one 10-mark and two 15-mark constructed response (CR) questions, 40 marks, focused on income tax and corporation tax)
- TX’s pass rate has run a stable 53-55% over the last five sittings, as of June 2026, noticeably higher than PM’s 40-45%
- The rules change every year: TX-UK is assessed against the current Finance Act, so studying from an outdated rates and allowances table is one of the most avoidable ways to lose marks
We have summarised ACCA’s own TX-UK examiner’s reports (Sep 2024-Jun 2026) and collected the best insights from past ACCA candidates in our tips shortlist below.
Other ACCA exam tips by paper: Business and Technology (BT) | Management Accounting (MA) | Financial Accounting (FA) | Corporate and Business Law (LW) | Performance Management (PM) | Financial Reporting (FR) | Audit and Assurance (AA) | Financial Management (FM) | Strategic Business Leader (SBL) | Strategic Business Reporting (SBR) | Advanced Financial Management (AFM) | Advanced Performance Management (APM) | Advanced Taxation (ATX) | Advanced Audit and Assurance (AAA)
What’s the format of the ACCA TX exam?
Knowing exactly what you’re up against changes how you prepare, so here’s a quick summary of the TX-UK exam format. Full detail is also available directly on ACCA’s own TX-UK exam support page.
| Section | Question type | Marks | Time budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Section A | 15 objective test (OT) questions, 2 marks each | 30 | ~54 minutes, ~3.6 minutes per question |
| Section B | 3 case scenarios, each with 5 OT questions worth 2 marks | 30 | ~54 minutes, ~18 minutes per case |
| Section C | One 10-mark and two 15-mark constructed response (CR) questions | 40 | ~72 minutes: ~18 minutes for the 10-mark question, ~27 minutes for each 15-mark question |
TX-UK runs for 3 hours and available quarterly (March, June, September, December). The pass mark is a fixed 50%. Section C’s two 15-mark questions specifically test income tax and corporation tax, so these two areas alone account for a significant share of the whole exam.
What are the most effective ACCA TX exam tips?
| ACCA TX Tips | Why |
|---|---|
| Show full workings for every calculation, even ones you’re not confident in | Marks are still awarded for a correct method applied to a wrong figure; one candidate misapplied a beneficial loan formula but still scored most of the mark because the working was visible. |
| Use zero (0) to indicate any item that needs no adjustment, whenever the requirement instructs this | Several corporation tax questions explicitly ask for this and award marks for it; skipping it is an easy loss even when every other figure is correct. |
| Build single-column computations with additions and deductions clearly distinguished, and total with the SUM function rather than adding cell by cell | Markers can’t always tell whether an unlabelled figure is a plus or a minus, and cell-by-cell addition breaks down as soon as negative entries appear. |
| Answer only what the requirement actually asks for, not what the scenario makes possible | Several candidates lost time computing an income tax or corporation tax liability figure when the requirement asked only for taxable income or taxable total profits, for zero extra credit. |
| Follow a full-computation instruction literally when a requirement specifies one, rather than working at the margin | A “calculate the overall tax saving” requirement that specifies full computations expects both spouses’ full income tax and CGT workings, not a shortcut comparison. |
| Keep detailed calculations out of a single spreadsheet cell | Long in-cell formulas are hard to mark and easy to get wrong; separate labelled rows or a small working table are safer and just as fast. |
| Work through adjustments in the same order the information is given in the question | This lets markers award follow-through credit even where an earlier figure is wrong, and reduces the chance of missing an item entirely. |
| Use clear headings whenever a question spans two or more tax years or two people | Figures for different years or different taxpayers get mixed up constantly when there’s no heading to separate them. |
| Read the Finance Act article published on ACCA’s own site before you start revising | TX-UK is assessed against a specific year’s rates, thresholds and rules, and studying from an outdated version produces confidently wrong answers that have nothing to do with your technical understanding. |
| Plan your approach before writing a Section C question that spans more than one tax | Higher-skills questions can combine two or three taxes or require genuine tax planning advice, and starting to write before mapping out the structure often produces a disorganised answer that misses marks available for a clear line of reasoning. |
What do examiners flag for each part of the ACCA TX syllabus?
| ACCA TX Topic | Topic-specific Tips |
|---|---|
| Payments on account | Base both instalments on the prior year’s self-assessment liability only, excluding anything already collected through PAYE. Remember a claim to reduce payments to £0 is valid without penalty risk if the current year’s tax is fully collected at source. |
| Employment benefits and NICs | Use the actual amount paid by the employer for a benefit (e.g. a discounted gym membership), not its normal list price. Never fold employer pension contributions into a class 1A NIC or income tax calculation, since employer contributions are not a taxable benefit. |
| Personal allowance and additional rate | Check total income against the £100,000 and £125,140 thresholds before assuming a personal allowance applies. A gross salary alone can be high enough to remove the allowance entirely and push all savings/dividend income into the additional rate. |
| Basis period reform and transition profits | Any transition profits sitting in the 2023-24 transition year must be spread evenly over five tax years and added to trading profits for each of those years. Do not calculate the tax-year-basis figure and stop there. |
| Partnership and part-year income apportionment | Apportion a partnership profit share or a salary by the actual number of months applicable to the period in question, using the individual’s own percentage or FTE months, not the partnership’s or employer’s total figure. |
| Deductible pension contributions | Employee personal pension contributions extend the basic rate band by the gross amount rather than being deducted from income. Do not deduct the gross contribution when calculating taxable income. |
| Property income adjustments | Exclude rent not yet received in the period, and restrict replacement-item relief to the cost of a like-for-like replacement, not an upgraded version. Never treat a returnable security deposit as income. |
| Rent-a-room and jointly held income | Apply the £7,500 rent-a-room limit before calculating a taxable surplus. Halve any jointly held income (a shared let room, joint savings) unless a different split is stated. |
| Gift aid donations | Extend the basic rate band by the grossed-up donation figure only once. Do not deduct it from income and do not gross up an already-gross figure a second time. |
| Chattels and CGT exemptions | Wasting chattels (predictable life under 50 years) are automatically exempt. Non-wasting chattels are only exempt if both proceeds and cost are under £6,000 each. |
| Gift holdover relief | This only applies to business assets used in a trade, including a trading partnership interest. Shares in a non-trading investment company do not qualify. |
| BADR and annual exempt amount allocation | Allocate the annual exempt amount and any capital losses against gains taxed at the higher CGT rate first, leaving BADR-qualifying gains taxed in full at 10 or 14%, since this produces the lower overall liability. |
| Private residence relief deemed occupation | Learn the three deemed-occupation rules precisely: any absence up to 3 years counts for any reason, up to 4 years counts if required to work elsewhere in the UK. The last 9 months of ownership always count regardless of use. |
| Share matching on takeovers | When cash and shares are both received in a takeover, apportion the original cost using the ratio of cash to the total consideration (cash plus the market value of shares received), not the par value of the new shares. |
| Part disposals and enhancement expenditure | Apportion only the original cost using A/(A+B), proceeds over proceeds plus retained value. Incidental costs or enhancement expenditure incurred wholly for the part disposed of are deducted in full, not apportioned. |
| Wasting assets (e.g. copyrights, patents) | Apportion cost on a straight-line basis over the asset’s unexpired life at acquisition, using the years actually held versus the years originally unexpired. |
| PET, CLT and IHT cumulation | Always cumulate earlier gifts within the 7-year lookback before applying the nil rate band on death. Use the correct grossing-up rate (20/80) only where the donor, not the recipient trust, pays the lifetime tax. |
| IHT exemptions ordering | Deduct the marriage exemption before annual exemptions. Use up the earliest available tax year’s annual exemption first before the current year’s. |
| Normal expenditure out of income | This exemption only applies to a pattern of regular gifts paid from surplus income without affecting the donor’s standard of living. A single lump sum gift does not qualify even if funded from income. |
| Chargeable estate valuation | Value retained shares at their reduced post-gift shareholding percentage, and deduct only debts incurred for valuable consideration. Deduct any repayment mortgage from the linked property’s value. |
| Corporation tax capital allowances (short/long accounting periods) | Time-apportion the AIA limit, and any WDA percentage, by the length of the accounting period. Skip a full pool computation and claim the allowance line by line where the opening TWDV is already nil. |
| Structures and buildings allowance | Exclude land from the qualifying cost. Start time-apportionment from the date the building was brought into use, not the date of purchase or the renovation spend. |
| Corporation tax loss relief | Deduct qualifying charitable donations after loss relief has been allocated, not before. Restrict a carry-back claim to the pro-rated profits of the earlier accounting period where it doesn’t match the loss-making period’s length. |
| Group relief vs chargeable gains group | Group relief needs a 75% effective interest at every level. A chargeable gains group only needs 75% direct ownership at each level plus an effective interest of over 50% for the ultimate parent, so a subsidiary can be in the gains group without qualifying for group relief. |
| Associated companies and augmented profits | Add, not deduct, dividends from non-group companies onto taxable total profits to get augmented profits. Divide the corporation tax profit thresholds by the number of associated companies including the company itself. |
| VAT on discounts | Apply the discount percentage only to the specific invoices on which it was actually taken up, not to total sales or to invoices where the discount was offered but not claimed. |
| VAT input tax recovery | Repairs and running costs on a car with private use remain fully recoverable regardless of the private use split. Entertaining a UK customer blocks input VAT recovery, but entertaining an overseas customer does not. |
| VAT tax points | The actual tax point (date of payment or invoice) overrides the basic tax point (dispatch or completion) whenever payment or invoicing happens before dispatch or within 14 days after it. |
| VAT impairment loss relief | Relief is only available once a debt is over 6 months past its due date and has been written off in the accounts. The claim window is only within 4 years and 6 months of the due date. |
| VAT registration and special schemes | Track cumulative taxable turnover against the £90,000 compulsory registration threshold monthly. Match the correct scheme thresholds (annual accounting £1.35m, flat rate £150,000) rather than mixing them up. |
| VAT administration | VAT returns and payments must both be made electronically, and are due one month and seven days after the quarter end. VAT records must be retained for six years. |
| UK statutory residence test | Check the automatic UK tests first, then count UK ties against the day-count threshold that applies for that number of ties, since more ties allow fewer days before residence is triggered. |
| Appeals procedure | Appeals relating to indirect taxes (VAT) go directly to the Tribunal. Appeals for direct taxes (income tax, corporation tax, CGT) generally go through HMRC’s internal review first. |
FAQs
What is the pass rate for ACCA TX?
TX-UK’s pass rate has run a stable 53-55% over the last five sittings, landing at 55% as of June 2026. This is noticeably higher and more stable than PM’s 40-45%. See our ACCA pass rates breakdown for how this compares across every paper.
What is a constructed response (CR) question in ACCA TX?
A constructed response question is a written computation marked by a human examiner, using the on-screen spreadsheet and word processor tools rather than an auto-marked format.
Section C’s three CR questions (one 10-mark, two 15-mark) focus mainly on income tax and corporation tax, and require full workings, not just a final figure.
Does the ACCA TX syllabus change every year?
Yes. TX-UK is assessed against a specific Finance Act, and tax rates, thresholds and allowances are updated annually. Always study from materials aligned to your specific exam sitting window, and read the Finance Act article ACCA publishes on its own site before you start revising in earnest.
How many questions are in the ACCA TX exam?
TX-UK has 33 questions in total: 15 objective test questions in Section A, 3 cases each containing 5 objective test questions in Section B (15 questions), and 3 constructed response questions in Section C. All questions are compulsory.
Is ACCA TX harder than PM?
Generally no. TX-UK’s pass rate has typically run 53-55%, noticeably higher than PM’s 40-45%. TX is calculation and rule-application heavy across several distinct tax areas, while PM demands more written interpretation and advisory-style analysis on top of its calculations.
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