Tax Specialist

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 Specialist earns the following wages (national and state):

State

The average salary in North Carolina for those pursuing this career is $55,990

National

The average salary in the United States for those pursuing this career is $59,425

What Does a Professional in this Career Do?

Responsible for documenting all stages of the accounting cycle in order to prepare Federal, State and local tax returns. Will review data prior to preparing the returns, prepare and file returns and will also provide background documentation in case of an audit.

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 Specialist 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.
• Critical Thinking: Experience objectively examining assumptions (adopted rules of thumb) underlying current beliefs to assess their correctness and legitimacy, and thus to validate or invalidate business beliefs.
• Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting or dpanneuring is a form of problem solving, often applied to repair failed products or processes on a machine or a system.

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.
• Tax Preparation: Working experience preparing tax returns, often income tax returns, often for a person other than the taxpayer.
• Customer Service: Working experience with the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.
• Public Accounting: Working experience of Public Accounting, which can be viewed as firms of accountants that serve clients such as businesses (retailers, manufacturers, service companies, etc.), individuals, nonprofits and governments. Services include: preparation, review, and auditing of the clients' financial statements; tax work including the preparation of income tax returns, and estate and tax planning; consulting and advice involving accounting systems, mergers and acquisitions, and much more.
• 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 Specialist 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 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.
• Audit Planning: Audit planning is a vital area of the audit primarily conducted at the beginning of audit process to ensure that appropriate attention is devoted to important areas, potential problems are promptly identified, work is completed expeditiously and work is properly coordinated.
• Individual Tax Returns: The type of tax return filed by an individual. Both single and married taxpayers, with and without dependents, file this type of return.
• Property Tax: Working experience with property taxes, which are ad valorem taxes on the value of properties, usually levied on real estate.

Salary Boosting Skills

A professional who wishes to excel in this career path may consider developing the following highly valued skills:

• Private Equity: Working experience of Private Equity, which typically refers to investment funds organized as limited partnerships that are not publicly traded and whose investors are typically large institutional investors, university endowments, or wealthy individuals.

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 Preparer/Associate Seasonal Remote
• Tax Specialist
• Senior Tax Associate
• Credentialed Tax Advisor - Cpa - Remote
• Remote Tax Advisor - Cpa, Enrolled Agent Or Attorney

Similar Occupations

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

• Tax Accountant
• Tax Preparer