Discussion:Career help, recent graduate thinking about MST.

I am a recent graduate with a BS in marketing. I have taken a couple accounting classes in college and took an interest to them. I am considering going to grad school to pursue an MST. Can some one shed some light on this desired career path? and also, I do not have a CPA. Will this hurt me in the future? If anyone could tell me about this field, and possibly give me some information what are the requirements to become a tax "expert". If I do choose this field, what can I expect my career to be like?

Thank you!

If you are to become a tax expert, then where will you work? Public accounting is where most tax experts work and they work LONG hours with high stress levels depending on the firm. You could work in industry at a large corporation which has its own tax department. Often tax director job requirements may contain a higher level degree requirement such as an MBA or MST.

There are several ways to go but I wouldn't hang your hat on an MST itself. You may have to take some additional accounting classes but a CPA will get you further.

If you want a career in tax, go for the MST or MAcc. Your marketing degree will also give you skills that will help you grow your business but the bottomline will be your expertise how good of a practioner you are.

I would also add the following about public...

if you choose to go into public accounting...it will absolutely pave the way for you toward any other accounting work you may want to do in the future. I would highly recommend it for a minimum of the first 3-5 years of an accounting career. And the hours aren't that bad until you move up into management. If you audit, you will have to be willing to live out of an audit bag and the trunk of your car for most of your early career. If you go tax, you rarely are out of the office, at least early on. I would recommend a smaller firm where you can do both.

As for education, public firms today will more likely than not, want you to have a graduate degree and few will hire anyone for tax out of college without a MST or MAcc. With experience and a good reference or two, you may be able to overcome that. Some of the best accountants aren't degreed or don't have graduate degrees but the lack of the education will hold you back at some point unless you open your own firm.

If you choose graduate school, please don't be fooled by professors in your graduate program who will tell you that you have to go Big 4 or else you are wasting your time in public. Usually their fellowships are sponsored by the larger firms. I went Big 6 and left after 4 years for a 40% pay raise and a 40 hour work week in Sunny FL but my experience lacked because I was pigeon-holed into one area. It was great experience and gave me the confidence to know I could succeed among many of the best of the best.

However, from where I sit now, I wish I had come to a smaller firm similar to the one I am in now having the opportunity to do a lot of different things. We have 5 partners but it is still a small firm. Tax department is one tax partner. 3 managers, and a senior. Firmwide, there are about 12-13 CPAs and another 6-8 who have the education and or experience without certificates.

Public accounting experience will allow you to pretty much pick and choose what you want to do. In a lull in my career last year prior to joining my current firm, I worked for about 7 months for Robert Half and I pretty much confirmed that as fact. A degreed accountant with public accounting experience can do pretty much what she or he wants. Add a CPA certificate and a graduate degree, and Katy bar the door.

I was in public from 1994 - 2000, owned and operated a store-front tax business for 3 years thereafter, and worked as a controller for 4 years and played in real estate before returning to public last fall. I picked about 12 firms here in town, sent resumes to partners or HR folks (depending on size), got 8 call-backs, interviewed with the 4 that I selected after speaking on the phone with them, visited 3, and chose what I thought was the best opportunity for me coming back to public.

And if you are good, you will likely never find yourself looking for a job unless you want to. Even the innocent ones at Arthur Anderson were gobbled up by the Fab 5 in a snap.

That's my nickel's worth.

Ok... Marketing is a lot different than tax. It can actually be fun. You know, convincing people who don't need your product that they can't live without it. It's got cat and mouse, intrigue, and the joy we all get from taking someone for a ride.

However, tax is not always fun, because you have to fit square pegs into round holes. Constantly. It's illogical. Look at a photograph of Congress (in lawful assembly), just look at them! They write this stuff. These people are morons! You have to take that stuff, maniuplate it, let it rise, pound it out, and make bread out of it.

Then, as is what usually happens, your client does not like your answer! Therefore, you feel like someone is holding a blow torch to the top of your head, and to the bottom of your feet at the same time. Ouch!

There's got to be an easier way to make a living. My advice is to pick a really obscure field of scholarly endeavor, and become a professor in that field. It should be very easy to get a job, because very few people are interested in such field (supply and demand); and once you get the job, no one will bother you because no one cares about such field. Classical languages are a good place to start your search; since so few people know Latin and Greek nowdays, they won't have any idea that you don't know what your're doing. Good luck.

P.S. Seriously. Try to read this book, it's probably at the local library in the "just recieved" section. "Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Debate Over Taxes." Fourth Edition. Profs. Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija. This will give you an idea of what the tax system is about, and the challanges you are about to step into.

Thanks again, anyone willing to offer other advice is greatly appreciated.

also, crowJD... I could not stop laughing at your response. It is very important to me that I choose something that I will be happy in. Your thoughts, although sarcastic made very good points.

Tmc, if you haven't taken a tax course, then I would be cautious. You need more information to make an intelligent decision. You may also want to take a look at "Federal Tax Research" by Profs. William Raabe, Gerald Whittenburg and Debra Sanders. 7th Ed. This is the type of book you will be using in the MST program, if you have not already used it undergrad. You can probably still get into your college library and check it out, or order it used from Powell's (Powells Used Books in Washington State).

Again, don't confuse accounting with tax work. It certainly doesn't hurt to be an accountant, but the methodology is not similar. Frankly, all tax work is the practice of law, but of course, permitted by tradition and law to be practiced by others.