REIT Tax Manager Growth
I am considering an offer for a Tax Manager position at a REIT (I am currently a senior in a PE/REIT tax group at a BIG 4 firm.) In the role I would be overseeing the tax compliance work for the spring busy season, Jan - April. The remainder of the year I would be working on income projections, REIT testing, and the occasional underwriting/due diligence project. I have had discussions with a few partners in my group and they basically say that I am shooting myself in the foot career wise. However, I know that the BIG 4 partner life is not for me and I would like to broaden my real estate knowledge. My question to you all is have you seen anyone with a real estate tax background grow within your company to a executive/VP type role, or do you think that I am locking myself into tax?
You're definitely locking yourself into tax. That is a dead end role.
Congrats on the offer - sounds like it could be pretty good jump from Senior at Big 4 in terms of comp and responsibility. However, I'm not sure where the growth would be from that position. Senior accounting roles - CAO or even controller - typically come from the accounting team (or external hires from senior ppl at audit firms)- I haven't seen one come from tax group. And the senior financial roles (CFO, treasurer, etc.) are trending much more capital markets focused than accounting. Another consideration is the work that you would be doing and how that fits in the company. The tax and compliance groups are essentially responsible for telling us (acquisitions, leasing, development) why we can't do creative things with our investments. Not an enviable position in my opinion. Depending on what kind of work you enjoy and your career aspirations, there are good quantitative positions in REITs that will get you a little higher level view and more exposure. I'd be on the lookout for positions on the finance teams (or asset management or acquisitions if you want to get closer to the RE and further from excel).
Thanks for the feedback. I have looked into asset management and acquisition roles, but everything I've seen would be a decent pay cut. At this point in my career I feel like I have 2 options: 1) Stay at big 4, make partner, and do RE tax the rest of my life with terrible hours. 2) Take this position and continue to do tax, have more work/life balance, and hopefully get the deal exposure I have been promised. Most the tax group is 3-5 year away from retirement - so there is growth within.
On a side note, if your tax compliance group is shutting down all of your creative ideas - I would start to question your group. While the REIT itself can't provide certain services, you can almost always structure around. The question then is whether or not any fees incurred and tax leakage associated with the idea make it worth it,
Yeah, I would assume the pay cut to go to AM or acquisitions is because you would essentially be starting at the bottom as an analyst? Would have to know that's the path you really want in order to make that move. Finance roles on the other hand, I would think that there would be an opportunity to lateral into a corp. finance group with similar (or better) comp - might be something to look into if you are interested in that? Certainly nothing wrong with this role/path - just cautioning that it might be a straightline to CFO's office. And, yes, of course I was being sarcastic about compliance killing all of the fun ideas - just understand that working within a firm where not everyone is an accountant, people aren't going to fully understand what you do, or that you aren't just there to make their life harder...
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