One minute with... Julie Park

How did you end up in VAT?

Completely by accident and for quite a low brow reason – in common with most people of my generation in VAT. I started off my career as a Russian linguist in the civil service and wanted to move to a different area of the country for personal reasons. The only civil service vacancy in that location was as a VAT control officer for HMRC. I was initially gutted at the prospect as I knew nothing about VAT other than the VAT rate but I have to say I haven’t looked back. I did a two-year stint with HMRC and then moved to a ‘big four’ firm. Obviously most firms and some companies now have substantial graduate recruitment programmes for VAT which is great as it keeps the pipeline moving. VAT is still some way down the pecking order of taxes...