Tax Consultant Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a tax consultant. Feel free to use our job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a tax consultant.
Who is a Tax Consultant?
Many people find tax matters to be perplexing and burdensome, and instead of handling their taxes themselves, they prefer to employ a professional. Taxpayers with significant assets or intricate personal finances should engage a tax consultant, who can utilize her wide knowledge and experience to reduce their tax bills and protect their interests. A tax consultant is a specialist whose job is to assist his or her customer in saving money by making sound financial judgments on tax difficulties. Interviewing clients to gather information about their financial situations and devising strategies to help them reduce their tax liability by taking advantage of tax credits and deductions is how tax consultants do their job.
Many people and business owners are simply uninformed of the plethora of rules that govern deductions, credits, and reportable income since tax laws change constantly. As a result, the average taxpayer is more likely to make errors that result in tax underpayment or overpayment. If a taxpayer underpays his taxes, he may face an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit, which could result in penalties while overpaying taxes results in the taxpayer losing money that is rightly his. A tax consultancy is a firm that offers expert guidance to taxpayers. A skilled tax consultant understands tax rules and can offer techniques that decrease responsibilities while also minimizing the danger of an audit, which could result in a disagreement with the IRS or a state tax agency. In addition, tax experts can help their customers prepare tax returns and other documentation.
Tax Consultant Job Description
Below are the tax consultant job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
The following are some of the most common services provided by tax consultants:
- Gather, organize and prepare tax returns and records.
- Determine tax liabilities by analyzing the client’s financial and legal situations.
- Assist clients with tax issues before, during, and after major life events such as marriage, divorce, a spouse’s death, or the birth of a child.
- Fill out complicated tax forms and schedules that are new to most tax preparers.
- Act as a client’s advocate when dealing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or other tax collectors.
- Create and maintain policies and procedures that ensure a sufficient level of tax management control.
- Make certain that all essential components of local tax legislation are properly read and included in the Company’s tax processes.
- Ensure that all Group and Statutory Tax Reporting requirements are met on schedule and with accuracy.
- Steer, advise and assist the company’s financials from a tax standpoint
- Ensure timely remittance and filing of all applicable taxes and levies (such as personal income tax, value-added tax, withholding tax, company income tax, capital gains tax, and so on).
- Inform management of changes in the tax environment, as well as the ramifications of tax legislation changes.
- Assist in the completion of tax audit activities by maintaining a good repository and archive of necessary tax documents in accordance with tax rules.
- Identify risks and manage tax exposures by providing tax planning, structuring, and highlighting tax implications of projects/contractual connections and agreements.
- Maintain a strong working relationship with tax advisors and the global tax team.
- Ensure that any tax communication is promptly responded to and that precautions are made to avoid fines.
Qualifications
For you to qualify for the role of a tax consultant you need to meet the following requirements:
- Education: Although tax consultants do not require any official schooling or training. However, it is important you hold a bachelor’s degree in an area such as Accounting or Banking and Finance
- Registration: As a professional tax consultant you must register with the Internal Revenue Service.
- Skills: as a tax consultant you need to possess the following skills:
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- Speaking skills: Tax consultants must be able to properly speak and communicate with their clients and others. In order to understand their clients’ financial situations, tax consultants must be able to listen intently without interrupting their clients.
- Analysis and Evaluation: To create strategic approaches to questions it is required that as a tax consultant you must effectively apply reasoning and logic on the job.
- Ability to solve Complex Problems: Working with tax data frequently involves complex issues, so as a tax consultant you must be able to identify and develop strategic solutions to problems quickly.
- Written Comprehension Skills: As a Tax Consultant you must be able to comprehend and read written materials.
- As a tax consultant, you must be able to comprehend and listen to spoken information.
- As a tax consultant, you must be able to express your ideas and facts in a way that others can grasp.
Essential Skills
All of the following abilities and competencies are required for you to be an effective licensed tax consultant:
- Good knowledge of accounting and ledger management
- Ability to use accounting software, particularly QuickBooks Online Accounting Software
- Good numerical and analytical skills
- Ability to analyze huge transaction data from raw source to relevant information using Excel
- Knowledge of petty cash accounting
- Excel data analytics abilities, with the ability to operate independently with little or no supervision.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced, high-pressure atmosphere by being attentive and having a strong eye for details.
- Excellent command of Microsoft Office applications, the Microsoft Operating System, and accounting software like NAV, SAGE:- Peachtree, Quick Book, Daceasy, and others.
Steps to Becoming a Tax Consultant
Obtaining certification, registration, or licensing as a tax professional necessitates study and in some situations certification, registration or licensing. However, the requirements differ depending on the state in which a tax expert desires to work. The following are some of the most common prerequisites for becoming a tax consultant:
- Education
A short training course is usually all that is required to become a tax consultant. Tax consultants in some places must finish a course approved by the regulatory agency that registers or licenses them. If you are interested in this career you should get a list of approved course providers from your state’s regulatory agency. Tax consultancy training is available at several community colleges and vocational schools as well as at tax consulting firms.
As part of the education requirement, you can become an internal revenue service (IRS) tax volunteer as this is another option for people like you who are interested in tax consultation as a career.
- Certification
Professional certification or professional acknowledgment of a tax consultant’s knowledge and talents is an option to follow to become a licensed tax consultant. This will help you have more work options and be able to charge more for your services and give more services to your customers. The necessary certifications and training include the following:
- Accredited Tax Advisor (ATA): Experienced tax professionals are awarded the Accredited Tax Advisor (R) (ATA) credential by the Accreditation Council for Accountancy and Taxation. Passing a professional exam and demonstrating three years of tax preparation experience are both required to earn the certificate.
- Annual Filing Season Training: The IRS provides this optional program to seasonal tax professionals who want to keep their skills and knowledge up to date. It gives tax professionals who complete a stipulated course of continuing education and pass a tax law test an annual filing season program certificate of completion.
- IRS Enrolled Agent: An enrolled agent is the highest designation given by the IRS to tax professionals. In contacts with the Internal Revenue Service, an enrolled agent permits a tax adviser to represent her clients. To become an enrolled agent, you must either have prior IRS experience or pass a three-part comprehensive exam. As a prerequisite of having their enrolled agent status renewed, enrolled agents must complete continuing education courses.
- The IRS’s Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) program: This should not be confused with IRS recognition and certification programs. A PTIN that can be obtained from the IRS is required for tax consultants within the certification area of tax return forms.
- Individuals who want to help low-income people and the elderly during tax season can get free training from the IRS. This might be a great method to learn about tax consultation while also getting hands-on experience. After completing more training as a volunteer tax consultant you may then choose to pursue a career as a tax professional.
Where do Tax Consultants Work?
As a tax consultant, you usually work from home, in a professional facility, or in certain locations such as a temporary office set up by a tax consultation business, in a storefront, shopping mall, or a kiosk, in a department store. In rare cases as a tax consultant, you may be required to travel to customers’ homes or offices to meet with them.
Tax Consultant Salary Scale
Tax consultants make a median salary of $47,090 in the United States. In London, the United Kingdom Area the average income for a tax consultant is £42,279 per year.