7 answers

I would like a career in accounting; however, I do not want to deal with taxes. What are my options?

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I am really interested in accounting but I find taxes to be boring. I would like a job that did not deal with taxes.
#accounting
#financial-accounting
#forensic-accounting

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7 answers

Laura’s Answer

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Hi Jahari,

The accounting profession offers a wide range of career options that include tax preparers and specialists but your options certainly are not limited to just tax work. For example I work at a public accounting firm in our audit (also known as assurance) practice and we have an entire separate group dedicated to tax work.

That being said, an accounting degree and the CPA certification both will require some tax knowledge. Typically you'll have to take a class on individual income taxes and possibly a corporate tax class. One of the four sections of the CPA exam is heavily focused on these topics. Even if you are not interested in learning about taxes, I urge you to still consider a career in accounting as once you get past these classes you'll have many opportunities to pursue accounting positions that do not require you to deal with taxes as many people might assume.
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Christine’s Answer

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Hi Jahari,

While many different positions have been mentioned in previous answers, I also wanted to add that as cliche as it sounds, accounting really is the language of business and opens up many doors. As several others have mentioned, most roles within professionals services are seeking accounting majors. While this does include those interested in doing Tax work, it also includes Auditors, IT Auditors (or Risk Assurance professionals), internal auditors, forensic accountants, transaction services specialists including highly technical accounting and financial due diligence, management consulting, technology consulting, just to name a few! Then outside the world of professional services, there are also accountancy roles within industry that offer a variety of accounting opportunities that do not involve Tax work.

I recommend exploring the websites of companies that you are interested in working for to see what roles are open to accounting majors. Attending on campus events at your University is also a great way to learn about what roles are open to accounting majors! Be sure to use your career services professionals as well, as they have a vast amount of knowledge and the skills that employers are looking for. I hope that helps!

Christine
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Shante’s Answer

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Jahari - If you are interested in Forensic Accounting you necessarily don't have to deal with taxes. Because Accounting is such a wide range of options to choose from, it would be best to see what you like or are interested in first and work your way towards that career path. Goodluck!
Hey Shante, this is a great point! I was thinking to do forensic accounting when I was in college. I am very interested in learning accounting and law so I was trying to get a profession where I could get both exposure on. I searched it through the Internet and found out "Forensic Accounting" and it becomes more and more popular nowadays. I highly encouraged you doing self check to know what you want to do as a career or what you are currently interested on and perform the research/ connect with people that you are trusted with. There are definitely things outside of taxes that you can get involved within accounting profession:) Good luck! – Ran Guo Translate
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Lisa’s Answer

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There are many different types of careers for accounting majors other than tax accounting; I would like to respond with a specialization that requires a specific set of skills and knowledge within the accounting discipline. Forensic accountants are usually found in internal audit departments within large corporations. This field occurring within the accounting discipline focuses on accounting practices designed to uncover fraud and/or practices or processes within an organization that "cover up" accurate or true reporting and/or metrics.
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Cherrelle’s Answer

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To add to the other responses, even within tax there are a multitude of specialties that will fall outside of your traditional sense of boring taxes. In a public accounting firm, whether big 4 or other, there are many other types of tax practices such as state & local - which has many other sub services (credits/incentives, unclaimed property, use tax), mergers & acquisitions, international, and the list goes on.

Cherrelle recommends the following next steps:

  • Check out job descriptions in the tax line of service for public accounting firms.
  • Check out Job descriptions for openings in assurance line of service.
  • Check out openings in advisory line of service.
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Alexandra’s Answer

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I have worked in Financial Control and now in Management Accounting for a bank. In some big companies such as an international bank, it is likely that there will be a Tax team, so that your involvement with taxes will be very limited.

If you want to avoid working with tax, you might want to avoid working in a small company where you would be the only accountant (or only have a few accountants) because you are more likely to have to work on the end to end accounting process.

If you work in a big company, you are more likely to specialize in an area of accounting, in which you may never look at taxes.
There are many jobs available that you can work that do not taxes involved. What exactly do you mean taxes though dealing with the government? If so you could work in an accounting department and do jobs such as accounts payable, accounts receivable or even handle chargebacks that are related to separating out the charges each organization utilizes of the overall companies expenses. – Patrecia (Trish) Rosito Translate
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Jasmin’s Answer

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Financial accounting

Public accounting

Government accounting

Forensic accounting

Management accounting

Internal auditing


Here's a link if you want more details on each: https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/what-are-the-types-of-accounting.html


I personally focus in the Risk Assurance area, which consists of Process Assurance (PA) and Internal Auditing (IA). Both of these focus on mitigating risk within an organization, but PA focuses more on financial systems and IT management, whereas IA focuses on the organization as a whole. I chose this rote because I also didn't want to do taxes, this job requires a lot of travel (which is something I wanted), and I am also able to learn a lot about the company in order to help them (I love to help others and learn new things).

Jasmin recommends the following next steps:

  • I suggest continuing asking questions you may have to your teachers, mentors, and Career Village. Feel free to search the internet as well. While searching the internet, one thing to keep an eye out for are shadow days that companies have. These days allow you to personally learn more about a field.
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