[Anonymous]

what’re some long-term job prospects for someone who ventures down the tax or audit paths?

for tax..i imagine that would be ideal if you want to run your own tax firm, or if you want to be a tax shareholder/partner in public accounting. what opportunities are there in the private industry for a tax specialist?

for audit..the long-term prospects in public accounting are obvious: audit shareholder/partner; or you can be some consultant (you’ve worked with clients all this time anyway), or CFO.

coming out of college i thought i would be delving into audit because that’s all they emphasized — getting the CPA and getting a nice audit job at a big 4. but now that i’m actually in public accounting industry, i find myself doing whatever work needs to be done at my firm — which has been tax.

however, i’m trying to think long term and see what tax can do for me. i know i don’t want to work 60-80 hours for 6 months out of the year for the rest of my life. that’s why being a tax stockholder isn’t much of a motivation for me. however, i kinda like tax and could be convinced that i can stick with it if someone can tell me what other long-term job prospects can stem out of tax?

[Anonymous]

bump

[Anonymous]

I don't know how much help I can be, but I do know someone who works as a tax manager at a big quasi-governmental organization. I believe most weeks he works the normal 37.5 hours which is considered full time at that place. He makes good money as well (94k). Salary is available since it's a government unit. This guy also happens to be a full time night teacher at a college. I don't know why he works so much. You could always work in tax and then transition to a company or a government organization. Not sure if you would want to, but just throwing it out there.

[Mayo]

Traditionally, audit is seen as the career option with the most flexibility and diversity of career tracks. Just to name a few:

-audit/public accounting

-IT audit/public accounting

-corporate accounting (assistant controller/controller/CFO/specialized accounting positions)

-internal audit

-corporate finace/financial analyst/corp development and strategy (depends on size of firm)

-due diligence (regional/big 4)

Tax is not my forte, but I'll say that I have spoken with people who worked in tax and then were promoted to corp accounting. Of course,once a tax geek, always a tax geek right? Those people who transitioned didn't really like leaving tax, and some left corp. accounting to go back. Generally though, your career in tax usually stays in tax, and as a result is a bit more limited the longer you stay in it.

The reason is obvious: Tax is much more specific than audit. In audit you learn financial statements, how a business operates, internal controls, blah blah blah…you get the picture. Point is, there's a lot more overlap for those type of skills than strictly tax.

Strictly speaking, if you're only looking to work in say a F500 company…yes you *might* be limiting yourself. But you also open doors to many different types of client serving consulting work that deals with tax. Maybe someone can chime in with more info…

Mayo, BBA, Macc

[Mayo]

Off the cuff, here's some random tax jobs:

-public accounting (tax compliance)

-public accounting (tax planning/consulting)

-corporate tax manager

-transfer pricing (big 4)

-transaction advisory(tax risks of business deals)

-valuation/litigation support

Mayo, BBA, Macc

[Anonymous]

thanks y'all!

@ashley love your blog! please try to find sometime between pomodoro breaks and write more posts lol. i'm cheering for u

[Author]

Replies