loubiblu

Background:

Moving to Chicago in early 2015 on an L2 visa with a written offer of OH employer supporting a GC application. Our intention is to be in the US for the 3-5 year life of work project, but to have the back up of a GC if we decide we would like to stay (never say never).

I'll be applying for an EAD, but haven't really got any intention of looking for work for at least the first 6 months. I'll concentrate on setting up home, flying back and forth with my older 2 children when they'll be sitting their A Levels/GCSEs this summer etc.

I'm a qualified teacher (MFL) but have no intention of returning to teaching and also a qualified accountant, firstly AAT and then after lots of hard work gaining CIMA level 2. I currently work part time for a small charity as their accountant and part time for British Cycling in an unrelated role.

How will my quals be seen in the US? Will it be costly/worth getting them evaluated, what sort of timescale might I be looking at to study for CPA exams? I won't need to work, but on the other hand I'm not a stay at home type either. Would appreciate some thoughts please

Hotscot

I used Google.

This was the first thing that came up.

How To Become a CPA | Becoming a CPA 2013

loubiblu

Thanks, I read that too, couldn't easily figure out what if any exemptions I'd have from sitting all the exams, eg my BA exempted me from some AAT exams and AAT quals counted towards some CIMA papers. Not sure it's worth pursuing CPA or not.

Hotscot

I'd imagine you'd need to decide where you'd potentially want to sit the exams and then contact them and ask?

Sally Redux

One of our group of expat mums in LA had been an accountant in England. She did a couple of tax seasons volunteering for an organisation which provides free tax help to low-income people. I believe they provided quite a bit of training to her. I'm not sure how much else she had to do to qualify, but she's now setting up on her own as a tax advisor. In fact she's been so busy that I've lost touch, but could try to find out more if you like.

retzie

If you have any interest in non-profit-type things - be they jobs or volunteering opportunities - keep an eye on Idealist.

N1cky

I'm AAT and CIMA, neither are recognized over here, although if you can get in front of someone, for an interview, they tend to be rather impressed with CIMA. I've been looking at doing the CPA, but have been too busy to do more than buy the first book. There are no exemptions. From what I can tell it's very similar to CIMA, with lots of the study areas being similar.

You'll need a degree to qualify you to take CPA exams, I had to complete my bachelors here, CIMA easily gave me enough business and finance credits, but I had to do a year of general ed. If you have a bachelors degree in the UK you should be ok not to have to do this step, but you will need to have your transcripts converted into US format.

loubiblu

Thank you all for your info

Tax is not my specialism here the the UK. Yes I know the theory, but I work within a small charity and the most that I handle tax wise is payroll and Gift Aid. Familiarising myself with the US tax system is a daunting enough prospect for personal taxes.

This is a great find and I'll be certain to look at this once we're settled in.

I suspected as much. I have a 4 year BA in Business Studies with Modern Foreign Languages from a UK university, but if we end up only staying for 3 or so years, not sure it would be worthwhile studying to take CPA. Looking at a few course providers, there is a lot of cross over so I should be able to take some exams without the need for the amount of work I put into CIMA. It would be the Regulation exams where I have a knowledge gap.

If I understand correctly, I can work as an accountant without CPA, but convincing an employer to hire me might be a different story. I'm not averse to perhaps looking for a 'bookkeeping' role as this is the area of Management Accounting that I most enjoy (I still use paper ledgers as taught on my degree 25 years ago before computerised programmes became the norm!). Fully versed and experienced in accounting software however.

johnnybrown532

What do you mean by flying back and forth with the children for their exams? They will probably be at least one good brit school in chicago which does GCSE and A level. It might not necessary to fly the children back and forth to sit exams in Liverpool.

loubiblu

Thanks for your input Johnny, I'm fully versed on all the options open to my children's schooling in Chicago, but as they are 18 and 16 and will have completed almost 2 years worth of work at their respective levels, the option that will work best for them is to sit the exams which they have studied for.

If you look back at people's previous posts, you can get their 'back story', which can make their decisions seem clearer to you.

Cheers

N1cky

In your position, and if you have the funds, I'd consider an MBA instead, you should be able to get some unit credits for this too. This is then fully portable wherever you go, however if you prefer the bookkeeping side CPA is probably more useful.

Getting an employer to hire you is always tricky. I don't think most places expect positions up to a Senior Accountants to have a CPA or MBA, positions beyond that can be hard. I feel I'm as high up as I can get without either of these, changing jobs is going to be difficult at the level I'm currently employed at, without gaining one of these qualifications.

matbow

What does 'CIMA level 2 mean'? If you have your ACMA designation then you also have the CGMA designation which is jointly issued by CIMA and the AICPA. It's not as recognized as a CPA, but it's getting there (if you take a look at LinkedIn a lot of CPA's are also listing CGMA in their certifications).

I work in the Finance/Investment industry and most "Accountants" (up to the senior Director level positions) don't have any accounting qualifications so I wouldn't say not having your CPA is going to stop you getting a job.