What Can You Do After Big 4 Tax Job?
I like both audit and tax. I searched online, found out a lot of information about career after audit in big 4. I couldn't find much about what kind of job you can find after big 4 tax?
big 4 tax exit opportunities
After spending some time at a big 4 firm working in tax, there are options about what you can do next with your career:
Here's what I've seen others do:
- Start your own tax practice
- Work at another tax firm
- Do corporate tax for an F500
- Become CFO of a small company (only saw one instance of it, and it was for a tax heavy industry being real estate)
- Go get your law degree/MBA and switch to something else
Some other users shared that it can be difficult breaking out of the Big 4 Tax practice but suggested that the OP could move to another Big 4 firm or try to move into investment banking.
Read More About Big 4 Exit Opps
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Big 4 tax.
Here's what I've seen others do:
Start your own tax practice Work at another tax firm Do corporate tax for an F500 Become CFO of a small company (only saw one instance of it, and it was for a tax heavy industry being real estate) Go get your law degree/MBA and switch to something else
Not saying these are your only options, but this is what I saw after my big 4 experience.
sounds about right to me. i would add (maybe?) lateraling to another Big 4 practice.
I know someone that moved into a boutique investment banking as an analyst.
Yea accounting sucks. The second you step into the big 4 people perceive you as a fungible bean counter. not much better in IB but at least you'll make more than a postman.
Thank very much. I have BA for my undergrad. I'm doing MS tax. If I want to go into Tax, which group should I go into in big 4? Is there any big difference between the groups, which will affect your future career?
If you want to go into tax....hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....TAX?
definitely not, if you want tax, i suggest working in pizza delivery. exit ops are phenomenal
Guessing he means which group within Tax, such as Federal, SALT etc.
Audit, Tax, Advisory = Practices
Federal Tax, Transaction Services etc = Groups
Unfortunately I despise and avoid tax so I have no advice for the OP as far as groups within tax.
I am in Big 4 tax. Although this thread is a few years old the advice some of the earlier posters provided is correct and I will add to it.
Did you ever find your answers and go into Big 4 Tax?
The Tax Practice is broken down into 4 Tax service lines with sub-specialties:
Federal Tax - broken into specialties depending on your geographic area's concentration of industry, for example: a. Atlanta - has real estate group w/in Fed Tax - lots of real estate investors located in Atlanta b. Dallas - has partnership group w/in Fed Tax - lots of financial services located in Dallas c. NY - finance - I don't think this needs to be explained to anyone on this website. heh heh
State and Local Tax (SALT) a. Income/Franchise Tax b. Sales and Use Tax (SUT) c. Credits & Incentives
International Tax
Transfer Pricing
Masters of Tax (MTx), Masters of Science in Taxation (MST), Masters of Accounting (MAcc), and Masters of Professional Accounting (MPA) degree holders primarily go into Fed Tax.
Loooool wtf? Brb, want to do tax but can't figure out whether tax, audit, TAS, or forensics at the Big 4 will give me tax experience. Not sure if serious.
If like working in tax and have studied tax then I think you should apply for a bartending position.
Since no one here seems to be offering any sort of advice, I'll give it a shot but I'm not a tax guy (did a brief rotation in there during my big 4 days).
In my big 4, Fed Tax was the biggest group by far. Other groups (i.e. SALT, international, M&A and individual/trust) had a few staff, and would borrow staff from Fed Tax during its down time. Based on that experience, it seems that Fed Tax would be a general place to start, and you'd have the option of moving into one of the other groups later (I had a friend who did Fed Tax and went over to work exclusively on M&A Tax after a couple of years).
Not sure if this is the case at all Big 4s. I'd ask the logistics/structure of the groups at each respective big 4 before making a decision.
All big 4's have a tax M&A practice that won't bore you to death. They can be pretty rewarding at the partner level too.
First person I've heard of who actually WANTED to do tax...for most friends it was a backup backup plan.
Hudge Fund tax officer.
Thanks for the real great advice.
Sorry to hijack this thread, but I'm interested as well. What are the career prospects like if you decide to just stay on with your Big 4? What are the compensation and responsibilities like for a tax specialist at the MD/Partner level?
This article has some decent info about tax exit ops
http://www.cpahaven.com/public-accounting-exit-ops
[quote=nelli3712]This article has some decent info about tax exit ops
http://www.cpahaven.com/public-accounting-exit-ops[/quote]
thanks. The article is great!
Haha. Wow, nothing here. I'll take a crack.
Considering the Big 4 are cranking out underpaid people with two years experience literally by the thousands every year, people end up doing a lot of things. It's important to realize that the cream of the crop never - ever - stays. The better you are, the faster you have to get out. Big 4 tax practices are made up of partners that were the most mediocre people within their practices - meaning they were the only ones that were good enough to stick around for 15 years, but not ambitious or smart enough to realize they were underpaid and did jack-shit.
With two years of experience, having a CPA behind your name is a blessing and a curse. Certain people won't give you the time of day - screw them. But there are tons of consulting and financial services businesses run by CPAs. This is probably your best bet.
In sum, pick the group that you think you can create a story out of. You need to be able to tell future employers: I worked at Big 4 and did this - and here is how I can help your business. I've seen people turn this into a Boutique IBD gig. Also, keep in mind, Big 4 tax (once you hit the manager level, so 4+ years minimum) place decently into all but the very top b-schools assuming you are smart and can knock out a solid GMAT.
PM me if you have any specific questions, I may be able to help.
I was interested in tax as well, and from what I collected, if you go into tax your best options are to stay in tax. This isn't necessarily bad because tax offers a variety of outlets such as M&A, international, small business, partnerships (this is probably one of the most complex areas), individual tax, etc. In tax your more successful by specializing, so that is usually how the career progresses. After a lot of experience you can also be a CFO in the industry you specialize in, but that is not as common as becoming the tax director for a firm.
Here are my two cents:
If you're not a tax lover (it seems you're not, otherwise you wouldn't be posting this thread) and you'd like to work with the areas of tax that are more related to numbers, finance and/or accounting, you should be considering these ones:
1) M&A Tax (Transactions Tax): within this department you'll be involved in the same deals the people in corporate finance are, but you'll analyze the deal from a tax perspective. At my B4, the floors are divided into Tax, Audit, and Consulting, but the M&A Tax sit together with the Consulting practice, since their job is more project-based and they work hand in hand with them. As someone above said, is one of those quantitative areas within tax. Note that "quantitative" means working with numbers "accountingly", nothing related to complex mathematics. 2) International Tax: even though case law is kind of important here, it is mostly creative accounting so as to minimize the tax bill. At my firm, they basically try to structure financial hybrids that have a different treatment under tax rules, relocating businesses to jurisdictions with lower corporate tax rates, etc. 3) Transfer Pricing: if you're keen on numbers, economics, and finance, this is the most finance/quantitative area you'll find at a B4 within the tax practice. As a matter of fact, I met accounting people that changed from audit to transfer pricing. This area deals with the intercompany transactions that are performed within a multinational company. The work may consist either in compliance or in planning. It is somehow related to international tax, but these people work separately. Just as an example, at my firm there is a financial services/transactions team that are specialized in pricing intercompany debt, structuring cash-pools, pricing derivatives, and so on. This team has no true tax people (nor law people), the partner is a CFA, one guy is a Msc in Finance, other one is a MA in Economics from NYU, etc.
When I had to choose, the most satisfactory thing I did in my research was to search in LinkedIn for people working at these areas. Even though there could be some exaggerations or missing information, you will get an idea of what sort of profile works at that department, as well as what type of work they're doing.
Cheers.
Big 4 Tax Accounting (Originally Posted: 10/02/2012)
I'm a sophomore at a semi-target majoring in econ (minoring in acct) and am deciding whether to go into IB or Big 4 accounting. I want to eventually start my own firm and think that if I work in taxes, I could start my own accounting firm after 5-6 years. I'm not really sure if working in IB would give me any applicable skills to open up a business. So even if I could get a MM or BB IB internship, should I still go to Big 4 accounting?
How do you know you even like tax? Have you taken a tax course yet?
I'd go big 4 if you want to start your own business
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