[Anonymous]

Hey everyone,

Currently looking into my options and I am generally set on tax and I have a few questions. Is there any advantage to working in tax for a few years then getting your JD? Also, of the tax specializations what is the best/ worst specialization and do you have any tips to breaking into the different specializations? I have a general interest in international tax I just don’t know enough on breaking into it.

Another general thought I had is because my girlfriend is a soon to be Dentist was trying to get into Dental CPA work. Does anyone have any experience on this?

Thanks everyone for your help and thoughts!

[jm962011]

I want to say I spoke to a head hunter recruiting for a CPA firm that only did tax work for dentists when I lived in Indianapolis. While I tried to google the firm and couldn't find anything, I did find this: https://www.adcpa.org/

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I know about the ADCPA, I just was looking for personal experiences of people who have tried to get into it. Like I said, my girlfriend will be a dentist in a year and one thing I have considered is going that route. It would be a huge benefit if she opened up her own practice at some point as I could probably work at home so we could save money on day care at some point.

[Anonymous]

[Missy]

Never heard of a dental CPA but I will offer this: my dentists hours are 3-8pm because he stays home with his girls during the day while his wife works. There's a very overlooked niche for dentists in the evening so their patients don't have to miss work hours for appointments. He's actually concerned about changing his hours when the girls are older because a lot of his patients chose his practice for the evening hours.

Licensed Massachusetts Non Reporting CPA since 2012
Finance/Admin/HR Manager

[Anonymous]

That is not a bad strategy at all. I don't think my fiance will be in that position; however, as she will have to work for someone else for at least a few years in order to pay back her loans.

[Mayo]

“Is there any advantage to working in tax for a few years then getting your JD?”

I've heard that any advantage is lost when you take into account the lost wages of three years in law school plus the amount of loans you normally need to take out.

But YMMV.

Mayo, BBA, Macc

[Anonymous]

Couple thoughts:

– You'd have to be in a big city to have enough dentists to be able to have a clientele entirely based out of dentists (presuming you don't plan to be doing all their billing). You may already be in such a place, but you'd have to stay in such a place for the business model to stay viable.
– Might be better to specialize in small medical practices, rather than specifically dentists. I think the CPA level of specialization would be similar, but the clientele would be larger. I'm not sure how much you can offer that is specialized for a dentist that isn't similar for all small medical practices. Again, this is presuming you're not meaning doing the billing; medical and dental billing are a whole different ball game.

If you are meaning that you're interested in doing medical billing, realize that is considered an entirely separate field from accounting. A firm that offered full-range accounts and accounting services could be a very niche market, so I'm not saying it would be a bad thing, but there's special certifications for medical billing (I assume the same for dental billing) and it's a lot more complicated than just general A/R, due to all the insurance codes. So, while being able to offer that you do all patient accounts as well as all their accounting could be a very interesting service to offer, it will be a very different service from offering CPA/accounting services.

[Skynet]

I don't recommend Preparing Taxes while doing Dental Work with Patients.

They are typically under Novocaine and will be numb making it difficult to respond to your interview questions.

[Author]

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