[pedrocerrano]

starting an entry-level public accounting as a tax staff soon.

It’s not Big4, but it’s not too much smaller than the Big4 either.

Any advice you have for me?

[impska]

Don't get fat during busy season. Sometimes it's hard to find time to exercise and most firms are constantly funneling snacks your way.

Think about what kinds of healthy lunches you can pack for yourself. It will save you time during your work day, save you money, and save you from adding fast food to the pile of junk food.

REG - 94
BEC - 92
FAR - 92
AUD - 99

[Anonymous]

https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam-forum/topic/those-of-you-who-went-into-tax-do-you-ever-regret-it

https://www.another71.com/cpa-exam-forum/topic/free-advice-dont-be-a-tax-accountant

Read those disclaimers.

[Anonymous]

I feel like I need to make a “I'm in Big4 tax and love it” post to counter those other threads. Tax is great. You have the option to travel or work from home on most clients, you get to solve puzzles instead of count beans, you get to apply a lot of the accounting you learned from school/the cpa almost instantly, busy seasons have pretty set start/stop points (can vary by client year ends), and in general the crews you work with are a bit more..sociable..than the audit teams always seem to be. This is of course assuming you're in Big4, you're in a good city, you've got good clients, etc. As for exit strategies, I have clients where the tax manager is a 20-something former manager from local Big 4s lol. If you know how to network, jumping over to a tax office in private is far from out of reach.

Tax is awesome, it just might not be for everyone. Same with audit. Same with anything.

[Anonymous]

It is refreshing to see a few opinions in the other direction ^^^

[Uhartsoccer21]

I studied REG during my first tax season and helped me a lot. So if you haven't taken REG yet.. doo ett

A - 89 10/23/2014
R - 90 2/27/2014
F - 75 5/25/2014
B - 83 8/28/2014

[2B.CPA]

I actually did exactly the same as you Uhartsoccer21. Yes, I'm definitely glad I stuided REG, because it connected directly with my work and helped out a lot. The work helped me to pass the exam also. I would say just be ready to figure out some things on your own. They will train you, but there's no way everything can be taught and you're just gonna have to figure some things out on your own through research.

[Anonymous]

Take a class on tax research, offered through CCH or Thompson Reuters (not sure who your firm uses for tax research subscription). By the time I left public accounting partners and directors utilized only me to do their tax research. Made quite a name for myself that way.

Tax research is hard, but if you learn how to use tools in Checkpoint/Intelliconect you will stand out from the crowd. BNA portfolios for tax are pretty much the best sources of editorial tax research.

[Author]

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