Tax Accountant

Career Area: Finance

Occupation Group: Accounting Professionals

Salary

Percentile wages tell how much a certain percentage of an overall population in a geographic area or within a given industry or field makes. The percentile wage estimate is the value of a wage below which a certain percent of workers fall.

An example would be the 25th percentile, 25 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 75 percent earn more than the estimated wage value. At the 75th percentile, 75 percent of workers employed in that occupation earn less and 25 percent earn more than the estimated wage value.

A typical Tax Accountant earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $59,807

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $63,444

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Organizes tax-related information and prepares tax returns. May work for individual or business clients, or work for a large corporation. Monitors tax regulations and advises on tax issues that affect business. May assist with preparation for a tax audit. May specialize in complex topics related to corporate taxes or trusts and estates.

Employment Trends

The job demand and job growth statistics shown here were derived from job posts over the past year. Expected job growth projections are extrapolated from year-over-year job post listing history.

Job demand and job growth is expected at the following rates:

Skills

A professional in this position typically utilizes the following skills in the course of everyday work in this exciting and challenging field:

Baseline Skills

The following are baseline skills every Tax Accountant is expected to have in order to experience success in this field:

• Communication Skills: The ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
• Research: Experience performing creative and systematic work to understand a product, market, or customer, either before building a new solution, or to troubleshoot an existing issue
• Problem Solving: Problem solving consists of using generic or ad hoc methods, in an orderly manner, for finding solutions to problems.
• Organizational Skills: Experience with a systematic process of structuring, integrating, co-ordinating task goals, and activities to resources in order to attain objectives.
• Computer Literacy: The ability to use computers and related technology efficiently for work tasks.

Specialized Skills

These skills are specific to working in this career:

• Tax Returns: Working experience with reports filed by a revenue service or tax collection agency containing information used to calculate income tax or other taxes.
• Accounting: Experience maintaining and verifying the business records of a person or business and preparing forms and reports for financial purposes.
• Tax Preparation: Working experience preparing tax returns, often income tax returns, often for a person other than the taxpayer.
• Tax Accounting: U.S. tax accounting refers to accounting for tax purposes in the United States. Unlike most countries, the United States has a comprehensive set of accounting principles for tax purposes, prescribed by tax law, which are separate and distinct from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
• Tax Law: Tax law is an area of legal study dealing with the constitutional, common-law, statutory, tax treaty, and regulatory rules that constitute the law applicable to taxation.

Distinguishing Skills

Any Tax Accountant that possesses the following skills will stand out against the competition:

• Tax Software: Tax software is defined as a type ofcomputersoftwaredesigned to help individuals or companies prepare for and file income, corporate and similar tax returns.
• Tax Analysis: Working experience of Tax Analysis, which is the analysis of a financial situation or plan from a tax perspective.
• General Ledger: A general ledger contains all the accounts for recording transactions relating to a company's assets, liabilities, owners' equity, revenue, and expenses.
• Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP): Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, also called GAAP or US GAAP, is the accounting standard adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
• Financial Reporting: Experience apply GAAP accounting practices to convey the financial performance of a company to the market, its investors, and other stakeholders.

Experience

This position typically requires the following level of experience. The numbers presented in the pie charts below were derived from actual job posts over the past year. Not all job postings list experience requirements.

Common Job Titles

It is possible to find work in this field in positions commonly listed as the following job titles:

• Tax Accountant
• Tax Associate
• Senior Tax Accountant
• Accelerated Tax Associate
• Credentialed Tax Accountant

Similar Occupations

If you are interested in exploring similar occupations, you may want to research the following job titles:

• Fund / Investment Accountant
• Payroll Accountant