A Day In The Life Of A Tax Manager
For this installment of our A Day In The Life Of A CPA series, Anthony Ozuna, CPA, a tax manager for Cupit, Milligan, Ogden & Williams in Reno, Nevada, walks us through a typical—and not so typical—day helping clients and businesses understand and mitigate their tax burdens.
Daily Reality Of A Tax Manager
A typical day for Anthony usually involves examining paperwork received, identifying additional information needed, inputting numbers into the tax software, and reviewing the results for errors and discrepancies. Various meetings would be held throughout the day with clients and with other staff members.
Client meetings often involve discussions of estimated tax liabilities and proposed tax strategies to address the client’s future plans and current problems. Anthony would also meet with junior staff members and provide direction and guidance to help them learn the ins and outs of tax management and the firm overall.
Anthony loves his job—and his clients consider him a trusted advisor. He and his team are often the first call when clients need guidance on proposed and forthcoming transactions and events, such as the tax implications of purchases and sales of property or businesses. He also provides advice regarding the risks and structuring possibilities for investment positions.
An Atypical Day
But not every day is so straightforward and Anthony occasionally has to tackle a major client crisis. For example, one client, a small wholesale wine and gourmet food business, had been experiencing increasing cash flow difficulties. When trying to collect the information needed for the annual tax filing, it discovered their “trusted” bookkeeper had stopped sending invoices to clients and recording vendor bills. As a result, the company was short nearly $400,000 and in danger of going under.
With the business in dire shape and the “records” seriously deficient, its upcoming tax filing was looking very iffy. Anthony calmed the client down, commiserated with him over the problems, and then started figuring out exactly what would be needed to keep his client’s business in operation, plus keep the IRS happy.
Fortunately, this was NOT a typical day in the life of a tax manager—but Anthony was able to handle it in stride and help his client keep his business dream alive.
What Makes For A “Good” Tax Manager?
As part of Anthony’s profile in our free “A Day In The Life Of A CPA” ebook, he details the four traits that a successful tax manager needs plus talks about his world travels as part of his work. In addition, the ebook includes articles on what the day-to-today work is like for CPAs working as a CFO, an internal auditor, forensic accounting specialist, and more.