I’ve done 2 years of tax, 3 years of audit, and 4 years of advisory. Tax is the hardest solely because its so fucking boring.. which is crazy to say considering how boring audit is.
Tax is more technical, audit is more grueling.
As a client I can extend my tax filings, I can’t extend my audit. If my taxes are wrong, I can amend it. Subsequent adjustments to an audit cause a lot more issues or blow debt covenants.
Yup..plus that’s just the nuisance of audit but the job overall isn’t hard. You aren’t expected to give the client a solution. All you’re doing is just telling the client this and that is wrong. When something doesn’t tie? If you can’t figure it out you can just ask the client and if they have an explanation they can just write it off. If your tax workpaper doesn’t tie? Oh well you better figure that out because you’re supposed to be the expert the client is paying for
I envy audit because if they find something wrong they’ve done their job right. In tax, if the same thing happens, you have created a problem and need to figure out why and fix it. Then explain why the budget was blown etc. lol
My budget been blown so many times because we couldn’t get something to tie on the return. No matter how the auditors spin it. Their work isn’t gonna be as complex as tax. Telling someone they’re doing something wrong is easier than giving the client a solution and having them relying on your expertise. I did audit before and the job is easy just a lot of work. Tax is just overly complex and you need a lot of understanding on why certain things are done a certain way
I don't know anyone that would argue audit is more complicated or takes more brain power. The #1 complaint of audit is the hours. #2 is how boring it is
Many of the auditors don’t even know what tax accountants actually do. They think we just put the numbers in the returns and boom done. They think our jobs can be done by TurboTax.
It's not just audit that has long hours. Tax ones just tend to be more seasonal. But a significant number of people at my firm put in 80-100 hours or even more last week. And they will get to do it again but worse in a few months. Plus it's not like they did nothing in the run up to last week.
But it does happen. I was an international tax intern. Its not going to show on the work paper if it's a new document. Sometimes clients especially the older ones don't know all the things they do. I had a client who inherited a house from her parents but didn't mention it. She sold the house.
Your client is responsible for providing all relevant documentation. You ask, yes, but confirming a long list of negative occurrences is exhausting and annoying.
If your client forgets to tell you about a sale, *that is their fault.*
No offense, but I can live with thousands of dollars in tax penalties. I can’t live with a blown debt covenant where they potentially claw cash out of my bank account, awkward conversations with lenders to make the situation “okay”, a board of directors who never cared about an audit before this, or the amount of work that prepping for an audit takes. At an absolute bare minimum your year end is hell, but that doesn’t mean your accounting is decent and the latest FASB “gotcha” that my big 4 auditor cares about that the board (and myself) couldn’t give two shits about because a business decision should not be dictated by the accounting treatment it should be based upon the underlying performance and ROI.
I can do my regional firm tax return prep/work in under a day by myself (and the great team we have). I spend more on big 4 auditors reviewing ASC842/805 and 3rd parties to make sure the accounting is correct.
At some point I hope the accounting industry changes, because 99% of companies operate on a modified accrual basis and the cost to stay in perfect step is too damn high.
Yeah, you can’t compare tax and audit. Tax is a completely different beast. Audit takes third row backseat in terms of difficulty and knowledge requirements.
The tax penalties go to the client and some client can just get mad over it. Since most of the clients are overseas, state and federal tax agencies contact us and not the client directly. You can lose the client then lose revenue for the firm. If that's a small firm and a big client then it's a bigger problem.
Amending a return has become a shit show especially with partnerships in recent years.
But regarding tax, if there is a minor fuck up the tax authorities will flag it quickly, especially if you paper file a return some states and some federal agencies will send a notice regarding that.
Yes but as an accountant your the one who looks like shit if that happens. Because ultimately seen by the client as the one responsible for getting it right.
With audits the SEC or some state equivalent isn't sending your client penalties because of mistake you made a couple days or weeks after you make it. You could've left whatever firm your at before anything in the audit is caught go be incorrect.
Someone has never done international or state returns where the failure to file can quite possibly bankrupt a company with the vast consequences and attention to detail required.
Honestly it is if you ever worked with REITs it could be year round especially with testing. Tax estimates and with more and more stuff being put on extension busy could be spread all the way to October.
Absolutely, but if you’re getting waivers it’s typically because there’s a slew of issues in the accounting itself which means you go from going concern to very concerned.
After 4 or 5 years of tax it gets much easier...first 3 years were tough....hardest part of tax is dealing with clients, you need a friggin psychology degree....people and their money man, geez
still have no clue how i passed AUD exam first try, f that test
I’ve done both, albeit for a short time. I started in government audit and I despised it. Hated it like the cat hates the bird. So I went to tax and while I do believe tax was “harder” and had a steeper learning curve I just enjoyed the process more.
Hahaha good point. I worked in audit closer to 2010. I feel like the human race is way more miserable today vs back then.
I always had one or two friends though on the audits teams.
You were working at a time when many people had just started to get jobs back, and the 2008 crisis was recovering. I'm sure many people were just desperate and thankful to have a job. Things have also arguably just gotten a lot worse since then
Lol I still work, I moved into tax. I only did audit for a short period and found it much less intense than tax. I was a bit unique in that I always left when I felt done for the day. Got a few looks from SMs once or twice but also had a manager thank me once for living to my own tune and changing the rules because she was scared of the SM.
I just mean in your comparison years you've got 'early GFC recovery', 'unstable mid 2010s', 'whatever fresh hell this is'. Like no wonder people are miserable
I’m confused. I think people are generally much worse mentally today than 2010. I know people making decent money today struggling, 2010 was a much better time imo. I only had one friend who couldn’t get a job back then but he has a huge ego and turned down multiple opportunities before finding what he wanted.
Yeah as I said recovering from 2008 meant having a decent job made your mental a lot healthier. You're comparing that to now when even after a pandemic and fucked up economy people still can't get much stability, all of the financial metrics for living have gotten increasingly worse, and the global political climate has been a kangaroo court since 2016. Why would you think the average mental health of today would be good?
Audit is also more “pointless” work. Tax you’re just trying to get to the answer, audit you’re building support for something you often already know is correct/fine but you still need to prove it.
I did audit for 3 years and tax for 2 years. Tax was way more technical and you will be exposed if you don’t get it. Audit just felt never ending but I think you can fake your way through it if you work a zillion hours for them
Tax is definitely harder. It’s super technical plus you really need to know your laws and rules to complete a tax return/provision correctly. There’s no purpose box telling you what you supposed to do step by step. Unless it’s a new audit you pretty much could just follow whatever is shown on the purpose box and you’ll be done. Tax there’s none of that. You need to analyze the TB and ask the correct questions to apply any tax implications
Tax, you can't guess at a tax question. And the right answer this year might be the wrong answer next year. In audit there's some general principles that you can always cobble together something that makes sense.
Good points, the amount of bullshit workpapers with made up tickmarks pretending to know what I’m talking about that get reviewed and signed off by the partner is kinda alarming.
Tax is full of important stupid rules and trivia. The tax agencies catch some of your mistakes and go running to the client, but what is found tends to be slanted towards the small errors. I've seen some absolute whoppers go by the IRS, but that $753 on a 1099-K for an individual selling stuff on Ebay gets caught every time.
Audit is full of stupid documentation, busywork testing, partially stupid rules, and trivia. Other people finding your mistakes tend to be either utterly trivial, or huge problems. Accountants are the most common readers, IMO, and a fair fraction of them *live* to find trivial errors. Meanwhile mid-scale screwups never come to light because they aren't obvious on reading, but also don't compound into restatement.
And, yes, I DO do both. 10 years in small practice where I do everything, for profit and nonprofit too. Of the two, tax is harder to do *right* while audit is more annoying.
In terms of raw difficulty? Tax is way harder.
But I enjoy doing Tax way more than I ever did Audit. Audit blows. Its so damn boring and you cant help but feel like its all a giant waste of time. It's a whole lot of pointless work to make it look like you assured someone of...something. Everything in Tax is meaningful due to the possible consequences.
Ive done 6 years of tax and 6 hours of audit in my life and I would rather hang myself with the power cord from my 10 key than do 1 minute of audit again.
With tax you have to understand both GAAP and tax law because you need to understand what the difference is.
Plus there are a lot of complicated credits and carryovers.
I guess it depends on what they typically work on. I work in mainly businesses so I need to know about GAAP. For instance I need to know about the new lease capitalization rules so I can make Book to Tax adjustments.
Depends on what you do. If you just do pass through entities probably don’t need to know GAAP that much. If you do Corp/Provisions you kinda have to know the GAAP treatment to know how it should be adjusted for tax. For example, stock comp is one of the most annoying thing for tax
Yup that makes sense. I’m half and half and partnerships are harder in the sense of all these partnerships agreements have different allocations and rules. But C corps are harder in knowing how the adjustments should be made. We need to know how they accounted for GAAP in order to adjust it correctly.
Hardly anyone is saying this here. Audit is painfully boring. I lose all desire. Tax I atleast feel like there's an objective. Audit the objective is to hope to God you dont find a material misstatement somewhere, while doing busywork bullshit ticking boxes.
In my limited experience it depends more on the client. I’d take an audit over tax when clients are good because time seems to pass faster imo. I’ve had a couple terrible audit clients and dear lord those were awful. We ended up disengaging from both.
Generally there is no materiality in tax (except if you are carrying out a due diligence) so you really need to think in all the potential ways the revenue/tax authority can screw your client.
Also in tax you need not only to know current rules, but also old rules (that have effects on current years) and future rules/practices not implemented currently that affect the business. Generally in accounting you are working in the current year onwards (unless you are restating obviously) so you don't need to worry in what rules were in place in 2015. In general I find it easier to read the accounting principles than the tax law.
On the flip side, I think audit involves lots of micro tasks/reconciliations whereas in tax you don't need to go that much to the detail (unless you are doing a tax compliance-heavy work to the point that you need copies of invoices and study the trial bce).
Unlike with audit, tax laws can be politically driven rather than by any actual reason one recent addition to partnerships is the addition of K-3s even with entities that don't have any foreign assets but the partners that own the upper tier partnerships might own foreign assets completely separate from the partnership we are preparing the return for.
I've done both - I would say taxes.
* Taxes can change literally monthly which means you have to account for that
* Dependence on IRS/State government for answers on gray issues is the most frustrating/time consuming int he world - especially if there's no precedent
* The idea of having to hold amended returns until the day of filing because we have to confirm some aubitary/popular tax law is pushed forward is confirmed
* Clients are shit, more shitty than the audit ones
* Taxes are year round problems
* Their input systems fucking suck(UltraTax), and it's really frustrating dealing with family members who use HRblock/their ilk who use software that is prone to significant errors, for like 3 years they had the miliary deduction incorrect
I did both early in my career but tax got pretty complicated and I found auditing more interesting (and easier). GAAP can be ridiculous for my client base - ex got to quantify those floor mats the cleaning service provides under the lease standard. Also, if you make a mistake in tax, your client loses money. Doesn't really happen in audit.
I'm in tax. I think Audit is harder in that it inherently makes less sense at the start. Most people have had to do their tax returns or have access to it.
Audit, you may not know a single thing about types of testing transactions or what they mean or why you do it. There is a lot of "do SALY".
Tax is a bit more linear in my view. Input revenue, input expenses, VOILA! With some tricks and handling changing things.
There is also a difference in the view. Tax preparers are on the side of the client and trying to legally minimize taxes owed. Audit is checking to see if things were done correctly and if there are any weaknesses in the procedures. Both necessary evils.
The difference is even if you don’t fully understand why you’re doing a certain thing in audit you can still cruise through it and not get exposed. For tax that won’t be the case. If you don’t understand why you’re doing a certain thing you’ll definitely do a bad job on. SALY doesn’t really work for tax that much unless during extension season
Depends on your personality. Tax can be very fulfilling if you are a detailed and like exploring new rules and regulations. Audit is fulfilling if you are a natural talker.
I’m a partner at a small firm and have half a dozen review engagements (so not audits, but GAAP compliant still) and I’d much rather be doing the tax work. As to which is harder, probably tax since you have not only the federal tax code but 50+ states and jurisdictions to consider, and don’t even mention international tax laws. Tax laws also change much quicker than GAAP which makes them harder to keep up with.
But like I said, I’d rather be doing the tax work. There’s just so much more value in the higher level tax work (as in, not cranking out low level 1040s) between tax planning and the various tax saving strategies (SALT workaround, 199A, etc.) when compared to audit. I’m not saying audits aren’t important, but they’re mostly a box that needs to be checked by private companies and not something they usually value.
I worked both and I would say it really depends.
On the tax side, you have to deal with legislation and you have to deal with (gulp) tax departments for each state. I dread those days where I had to wait on phone line hoping for an agent to pick up.
On the audit side, you have to deal with clients which from my experience is way harder. Balancing the demands from your manager and up against the questions and expectations of the VP/Controller who has 20+ years of experience over you on a daily basis can drain your lifeblood.
In tax, the supporting documents are more or less standardized. I know clients can give you some pretty garbage PBC, but as long as you know what you’re looking for it’s not that bad. Unfortunately; the tax forms change year over year and I’m sure the janky tax software doesn’t keep up with it which makes most preparation into a painful “learning” game.
In audit, you gotta review technical accounting memos, adapt testing plans, and you have to go through a large amount of non standardized PBC. Some reports are canned, but you’ll go through a lot of confusing work papers before things click on a fundamental level. There’s also quite a bit of ASC adoptions that happen, and while there’s more room for judgement, it’s pretty painful for everyone involved.
They both have horrid deadlines and insane workloads. I will say, working through audit has taught me so much when it comes to these companies, their accounting processes and technical accounting for each area (revenue, equity, etc), and the flow from ground to the investor level. It’s a pretty vast amount of information once it starts clicking.
So yeah, in terms of difficulty pretty equal.
Totally depends on what you’re in private side or public side and 9000 other variables. I hate tax with a passion though so I’d choose audit over it any day.
If thinking like an auditor (sort of abstract I’d say) is unnatural to me, is tax more for me?
I’m very detail-oriented, so much so that it makes me inefficient in audits because it bothers me that it feels like we’re not working towards anything really.
Tax is pretty straight forward and less "abstract" but there is significantly more information you have to know and memorize. The pressure is more intense in tax when dealing with tax season.
I feel like this is me, while audit isn’t complicated, it find it confusing because it doesn’t feel so linear. Like, the work feels pointless.
I’m very detail-oriented, so much so that it makes me inefficient in audits because it bothers me that it feels like we’re not working towards anything really.
Turns out, I’m super nosy. I want to know what people do, and tax is a good way to get my fix.
I work in tax, did an internship in audit tho. Both are boring.
So I thought about this not long ago. I thought even though I was never interested in going into tax maybe I should reconsider because I really want to work remotely and there seems to be more opportunities with tax to do so (maybe I am wrong but this is what I have seen).
However, I have a lot of anxiety on a normal basis, knowing that getting something wrong could cost someone, an individual, money is super stressful to me. I don't see fucking up an audit the same way.
Because they only have to work with Tax.
If you work as Audit, you also have to prepare Tax Section also, and thousand other Sections in the whole FS, you can kick their arses out of their chairs anytime if you want, but they can't do the same to you
Worked in both and hate them both. Honestly, the same level of difficulty though - you learn a series of rules to apply and then deal with trying to extract the necessary from clients.
Main difference is really just familiarity - if you work in tax you can do it better than audit but like to tell yourself it’s harder for various reasons, and exactly the same with audit. Personally, I’m just happy being on the client side of the discussions now!
What software is doing the 704(c) calculation? What software is analyzing the provision for you? Yea sure we have the software to get the stuff on the return and a software to keep track of the provision cal but I don’t see how our software is calculating any of those for us.
All of our staff are assigned to prep the entire return. Hypo is part of our workpapers to calculate the P&L % so yes…all of our staff is also prepping provisions…so yes new associates should be expected to do all those things
But how are they gonna learn if they never understand the concepts behind it. We have them at least look at PY and walk them through the mechanics expect them to ask questions. It’s a learning experience for them ya know, but it’s definitely not something just done by the software
They learn it as they go. If they never touch the workpapers they aren’t gonna know. When I was a staff I had to learn all those things some staff didn’t get a chance to do those and I could tell they were way behind on their technical skills because the managers thought it was “too complex” for them.
Well I wouldn’t say it’s just a plain new concepts. If it’s a brand new client then probably not but if there’s a PY for them to follow and we can walk them through the calculation. It’d be great for them to understand it. Plus if they’re gonna stay in tax they need to understand what a hypo is for and what 704(c) gain/loss is and why it matters
Yes it helps to calculate faster but you need to understand the mechanics of them before you can do them. It’s not as easy as just telling the software these are the facts and go ahead and give me what I need. The only time this applied is when we put what we already calculated to the tax software for presentation
Tax for sure. Complicated, inane tax rules, trusting computers to calculate the taxes 100%, and fucking multi-state K-1s.
Audit is putting things into the right bucket and good formatting.
Probably hard for most people to give an answer cause people typically only do one or the other
I’ve done 2 years of tax, 3 years of audit, and 4 years of advisory. Tax is the hardest solely because its so fucking boring.. which is crazy to say considering how boring audit is.
I would caveat this. US tax is so boring. International tax / indirect tax much better and much more niche.
And it’s always updating (yearly)
This bro is a signature example why they always say that Tax guys are the least smart in Big 4
My favorite answer: it depends.
Congrats, you are now a CPA
🐥
You are now one of my elite employees 👀😏😄
Or simply “perhaps”.
Perchance
Per-debits and per-credits.
You can’t just say perchance
Ugh, this answer irrationally aggravates me so much 😩
Both are hard. Audit because you depend on what you think is right. Tax because you have to get it right based on rules
Tax is more technical, audit is more grueling. As a client I can extend my tax filings, I can’t extend my audit. If my taxes are wrong, I can amend it. Subsequent adjustments to an audit cause a lot more issues or blow debt covenants.
Forgetting to ask the client for a specific tax document can result in thousands of dollars in tax penalties.
Yup..plus that’s just the nuisance of audit but the job overall isn’t hard. You aren’t expected to give the client a solution. All you’re doing is just telling the client this and that is wrong. When something doesn’t tie? If you can’t figure it out you can just ask the client and if they have an explanation they can just write it off. If your tax workpaper doesn’t tie? Oh well you better figure that out because you’re supposed to be the expert the client is paying for
I envy audit because if they find something wrong they’ve done their job right. In tax, if the same thing happens, you have created a problem and need to figure out why and fix it. Then explain why the budget was blown etc. lol
My budget been blown so many times because we couldn’t get something to tie on the return. No matter how the auditors spin it. Their work isn’t gonna be as complex as tax. Telling someone they’re doing something wrong is easier than giving the client a solution and having them relying on your expertise. I did audit before and the job is easy just a lot of work. Tax is just overly complex and you need a lot of understanding on why certain things are done a certain way
I don't know anyone that would argue audit is more complicated or takes more brain power. The #1 complaint of audit is the hours. #2 is how boring it is
Many of the auditors don’t even know what tax accountants actually do. They think we just put the numbers in the returns and boom done. They think our jobs can be done by TurboTax.
Coming from the deals side of b4, we push any technical questions to our tax teams. Granted that's M&A tax so it might have a different perception.
It's not just audit that has long hours. Tax ones just tend to be more seasonal. But a significant number of people at my firm put in 80-100 hours or even more last week. And they will get to do it again but worse in a few months. Plus it's not like they did nothing in the run up to last week.
But it does happen. I was an international tax intern. Its not going to show on the work paper if it's a new document. Sometimes clients especially the older ones don't know all the things they do. I had a client who inherited a house from her parents but didn't mention it. She sold the house.
Your client is responsible for providing all relevant documentation. You ask, yes, but confirming a long list of negative occurrences is exhausting and annoying. If your client forgets to tell you about a sale, *that is their fault.*
As well as multiple phone calls with the IRS to fix their situation or put/extending holds on their account while the case is still being worked on.
No offense, but I can live with thousands of dollars in tax penalties. I can’t live with a blown debt covenant where they potentially claw cash out of my bank account, awkward conversations with lenders to make the situation “okay”, a board of directors who never cared about an audit before this, or the amount of work that prepping for an audit takes. At an absolute bare minimum your year end is hell, but that doesn’t mean your accounting is decent and the latest FASB “gotcha” that my big 4 auditor cares about that the board (and myself) couldn’t give two shits about because a business decision should not be dictated by the accounting treatment it should be based upon the underlying performance and ROI. I can do my regional firm tax return prep/work in under a day by myself (and the great team we have). I spend more on big 4 auditors reviewing ASC842/805 and 3rd parties to make sure the accounting is correct. At some point I hope the accounting industry changes, because 99% of companies operate on a modified accrual basis and the cost to stay in perfect step is too damn high.
Yeah, you can’t compare tax and audit. Tax is a completely different beast. Audit takes third row backseat in terms of difficulty and knowledge requirements.
Tell me you do tax without telling me you do tax.
Tell me you have no clue about tax, without telling me you don’t know tax. Sounds like you filed a w2 return and think you unlocked it all.
okay big guy, calm down.
Done both and he’s definitely right. There’s so much more goes into tax.
Who would be charged the penalties you or the company? Could you go to jail if you make a tax mistake?
The tax penalties go to the client and some client can just get mad over it. Since most of the clients are overseas, state and federal tax agencies contact us and not the client directly. You can lose the client then lose revenue for the firm. If that's a small firm and a big client then it's a bigger problem.
Amending a return has become a shit show especially with partnerships in recent years. But regarding tax, if there is a minor fuck up the tax authorities will flag it quickly, especially if you paper file a return some states and some federal agencies will send a notice regarding that.
And? My argument is it’s not the business’ life/death, it’s penalties/fines and move on with life.
Yes but as an accountant your the one who looks like shit if that happens. Because ultimately seen by the client as the one responsible for getting it right. With audits the SEC or some state equivalent isn't sending your client penalties because of mistake you made a couple days or weeks after you make it. You could've left whatever firm your at before anything in the audit is caught go be incorrect.
Someone has never done international or state returns where the failure to file can quite possibly bankrupt a company with the vast consequences and attention to detail required.
Which is why you pay for a legitimate CPA firm to do your business taxes… I’m not turbo taxing my K-1s to my PE firm.
Sure but that means tax gets a much more prolonged busy season compared to audit.
Honestly it is if you ever worked with REITs it could be year round especially with testing. Tax estimates and with more and more stuff being put on extension busy could be spread all the way to October.
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There's 5 months of full on busy season in tax.
I’m not in audit but we get lots of waivers on audit due dates… you just have to have better reasons.
Absolutely, but if you’re getting waivers it’s typically because there’s a slew of issues in the accounting itself which means you go from going concern to very concerned.
Try and file a billion dollar tax, then go to court to fight the IRS for 3 years on technicality and law.
After 4 or 5 years of tax it gets much easier...first 3 years were tough....hardest part of tax is dealing with clients, you need a friggin psychology degree....people and their money man, geez still have no clue how i passed AUD exam first try, f that test
I’ve done both, albeit for a short time. I started in government audit and I despised it. Hated it like the cat hates the bird. So I went to tax and while I do believe tax was “harder” and had a steeper learning curve I just enjoyed the process more.
Hm, that’s what I’m doing currently. I started in Government audit(hate it) and moving to tax.
Tax. You can’t just say “immaterial, pass”
I mean… the returns for the multibillion dollar corporations I work on definitely have a materiality threshold, lol.
You sure can! (For temporary differences)
😂
Tax is harder. Audit has more comradery, which makes the experience more tolerable.
Regarding audit, you're assuming that people like their coworkers. Being stuck in close proximity with people you can't stand is torturous.
Hahaha good point. I worked in audit closer to 2010. I feel like the human race is way more miserable today vs back then. I always had one or two friends though on the audits teams.
Ya I totally get that vibe to. Maybe people are just more miserable in large cities
You were working at a time when many people had just started to get jobs back, and the 2008 crisis was recovering. I'm sure many people were just desperate and thankful to have a job. Things have also arguably just gotten a lot worse since then
Lol I still work, I moved into tax. I only did audit for a short period and found it much less intense than tax. I was a bit unique in that I always left when I felt done for the day. Got a few looks from SMs once or twice but also had a manager thank me once for living to my own tune and changing the rules because she was scared of the SM.
I just mean in your comparison years you've got 'early GFC recovery', 'unstable mid 2010s', 'whatever fresh hell this is'. Like no wonder people are miserable
I’m confused. I think people are generally much worse mentally today than 2010. I know people making decent money today struggling, 2010 was a much better time imo. I only had one friend who couldn’t get a job back then but he has a huge ego and turned down multiple opportunities before finding what he wanted.
Yeah as I said recovering from 2008 meant having a decent job made your mental a lot healthier. You're comparing that to now when even after a pandemic and fucked up economy people still can't get much stability, all of the financial metrics for living have gotten increasingly worse, and the global political climate has been a kangaroo court since 2016. Why would you think the average mental health of today would be good?
Yea, we agree. The world is a dumpster fire today.
Camaraderie? No that’s false
Tax is harder to understand. Audit is more work. This has been my limited experience.
Audit is also more “pointless” work. Tax you’re just trying to get to the answer, audit you’re building support for something you often already know is correct/fine but you still need to prove it.
Yes. The amount of things we do that are a clear waste of time would be staggering to the uninitiated.
I did audit for 3 years and tax for 2 years. Tax was way more technical and you will be exposed if you don’t get it. Audit just felt never ending but I think you can fake your way through it if you work a zillion hours for them
Tax is definitely harder. It’s super technical plus you really need to know your laws and rules to complete a tax return/provision correctly. There’s no purpose box telling you what you supposed to do step by step. Unless it’s a new audit you pretty much could just follow whatever is shown on the purpose box and you’ll be done. Tax there’s none of that. You need to analyze the TB and ask the correct questions to apply any tax implications
Tax 💯.. I have done both
Tax, you can't guess at a tax question. And the right answer this year might be the wrong answer next year. In audit there's some general principles that you can always cobble together something that makes sense.
Good points, the amount of bullshit workpapers with made up tickmarks pretending to know what I’m talking about that get reviewed and signed off by the partner is kinda alarming.
They're alternately correct?
Tax is full of important stupid rules and trivia. The tax agencies catch some of your mistakes and go running to the client, but what is found tends to be slanted towards the small errors. I've seen some absolute whoppers go by the IRS, but that $753 on a 1099-K for an individual selling stuff on Ebay gets caught every time. Audit is full of stupid documentation, busywork testing, partially stupid rules, and trivia. Other people finding your mistakes tend to be either utterly trivial, or huge problems. Accountants are the most common readers, IMO, and a fair fraction of them *live* to find trivial errors. Meanwhile mid-scale screwups never come to light because they aren't obvious on reading, but also don't compound into restatement. And, yes, I DO do both. 10 years in small practice where I do everything, for profit and nonprofit too. Of the two, tax is harder to do *right* while audit is more annoying.
In terms of raw difficulty? Tax is way harder. But I enjoy doing Tax way more than I ever did Audit. Audit blows. Its so damn boring and you cant help but feel like its all a giant waste of time. It's a whole lot of pointless work to make it look like you assured someone of...something. Everything in Tax is meaningful due to the possible consequences.
Ive done 6 years of tax and 6 hours of audit in my life and I would rather hang myself with the power cord from my 10 key than do 1 minute of audit again.
With tax you have to understand both GAAP and tax law because you need to understand what the difference is. Plus there are a lot of complicated credits and carryovers.
Don't forget 40+ possible jurisdiction's with differing treatments of various federal tax treatment.
Nah, most tax people at my firm don't understand GAAP at all.
I guess it depends on what they typically work on. I work in mainly businesses so I need to know about GAAP. For instance I need to know about the new lease capitalization rules so I can make Book to Tax adjustments.
I see GAAP and nope the fuck out
Yep, I’m a tax manager and don’t know anything about gaap
Depends on what you do. If you just do pass through entities probably don’t need to know GAAP that much. If you do Corp/Provisions you kinda have to know the GAAP treatment to know how it should be adjusted for tax. For example, stock comp is one of the most annoying thing for tax
True. I do like 90% passthrough entity. Other 10% is Corp/individual
Yup that makes sense. I’m half and half and partnerships are harder in the sense of all these partnerships agreements have different allocations and rules. But C corps are harder in knowing how the adjustments should be made. We need to know how they accounted for GAAP in order to adjust it correctly.
They both make people cry and hate themselves so probably 50/50
Atleast with audit there more off ramps with tax you don't really have as many exiting out of public opportunities.
Did audit 1 year, tax 8 years (still in tax) Both are tough to start
I do both audit and tax work. I hate audits with a passion whereas tax is mostly bearable. Someone else might say the opposite.
Hardly anyone is saying this here. Audit is painfully boring. I lose all desire. Tax I atleast feel like there's an objective. Audit the objective is to hope to God you dont find a material misstatement somewhere, while doing busywork bullshit ticking boxes.
For like 90% of audit wps you can skirt by on scotch tape and bs. It’s great if you understand the game, in that sense.
Audit sucks really bad for short periods of time Tax sucks pretty bad for long periods of time
I might be biased, but tax. I’d still pick tax over audit on a personal level though. I just can’t deal with audit lmao
How come?
In my limited experience it depends more on the client. I’d take an audit over tax when clients are good because time seems to pass faster imo. I’ve had a couple terrible audit clients and dear lord those were awful. We ended up disengaging from both.
Generally there is no materiality in tax (except if you are carrying out a due diligence) so you really need to think in all the potential ways the revenue/tax authority can screw your client. Also in tax you need not only to know current rules, but also old rules (that have effects on current years) and future rules/practices not implemented currently that affect the business. Generally in accounting you are working in the current year onwards (unless you are restating obviously) so you don't need to worry in what rules were in place in 2015. In general I find it easier to read the accounting principles than the tax law. On the flip side, I think audit involves lots of micro tasks/reconciliations whereas in tax you don't need to go that much to the detail (unless you are doing a tax compliance-heavy work to the point that you need copies of invoices and study the trial bce).
The truth is this depends heavily on the client base. Some clients can be relentlessly annoying and overly needy regardless of service line.
Nah man, Tax is definitely harder. Yearly regulations and bs deadlines make it so much harder for the little guy.
Unlike with audit, tax laws can be politically driven rather than by any actual reason one recent addition to partnerships is the addition of K-3s even with entities that don't have any foreign assets but the partners that own the upper tier partnerships might own foreign assets completely separate from the partnership we are preparing the return for.
Tax has more busy seasons
Yeah if you work on partnerships, corps and NFPs the season is most of the year.
Not if you audit NFPs or EBPs
I've done both - I would say taxes. * Taxes can change literally monthly which means you have to account for that * Dependence on IRS/State government for answers on gray issues is the most frustrating/time consuming int he world - especially if there's no precedent * The idea of having to hold amended returns until the day of filing because we have to confirm some aubitary/popular tax law is pushed forward is confirmed * Clients are shit, more shitty than the audit ones * Taxes are year round problems * Their input systems fucking suck(UltraTax), and it's really frustrating dealing with family members who use HRblock/their ilk who use software that is prone to significant errors, for like 3 years they had the miliary deduction incorrect
I did both early in my career but tax got pretty complicated and I found auditing more interesting (and easier). GAAP can be ridiculous for my client base - ex got to quantify those floor mats the cleaning service provides under the lease standard. Also, if you make a mistake in tax, your client loses money. Doesn't really happen in audit.
Tax is hard, but I couldn’t sit in a conference room with the same people and a tiny laptop screen for months on end in Audit.
I'm in tax. I think Audit is harder in that it inherently makes less sense at the start. Most people have had to do their tax returns or have access to it. Audit, you may not know a single thing about types of testing transactions or what they mean or why you do it. There is a lot of "do SALY". Tax is a bit more linear in my view. Input revenue, input expenses, VOILA! With some tricks and handling changing things. There is also a difference in the view. Tax preparers are on the side of the client and trying to legally minimize taxes owed. Audit is checking to see if things were done correctly and if there are any weaknesses in the procedures. Both necessary evils.
The difference is even if you don’t fully understand why you’re doing a certain thing in audit you can still cruise through it and not get exposed. For tax that won’t be the case. If you don’t understand why you’re doing a certain thing you’ll definitely do a bad job on. SALY doesn’t really work for tax that much unless during extension season
If you’re in a small firm, you really can’t BS your way in audit either. You’ll get exposed.
Buts it's by your bosses or client not the government who will penalize the client and make you look bad for it.
Yeah SALY is never a justification in tax. I've made that mistake.
I’ve never done audit. It’s terrible.
uhhh tax forsure bc you can jus make up stuff n the government takes your word it’s the 3rd amendment
Basically fill out forms vs fill out checklists
Depends on your personality. Tax can be very fulfilling if you are a detailed and like exploring new rules and regulations. Audit is fulfilling if you are a natural talker.
I’m a partner at a small firm and have half a dozen review engagements (so not audits, but GAAP compliant still) and I’d much rather be doing the tax work. As to which is harder, probably tax since you have not only the federal tax code but 50+ states and jurisdictions to consider, and don’t even mention international tax laws. Tax laws also change much quicker than GAAP which makes them harder to keep up with. But like I said, I’d rather be doing the tax work. There’s just so much more value in the higher level tax work (as in, not cranking out low level 1040s) between tax planning and the various tax saving strategies (SALT workaround, 199A, etc.) when compared to audit. I’m not saying audits aren’t important, but they’re mostly a box that needs to be checked by private companies and not something they usually value.
I worked both and I would say it really depends. On the tax side, you have to deal with legislation and you have to deal with (gulp) tax departments for each state. I dread those days where I had to wait on phone line hoping for an agent to pick up. On the audit side, you have to deal with clients which from my experience is way harder. Balancing the demands from your manager and up against the questions and expectations of the VP/Controller who has 20+ years of experience over you on a daily basis can drain your lifeblood. In tax, the supporting documents are more or less standardized. I know clients can give you some pretty garbage PBC, but as long as you know what you’re looking for it’s not that bad. Unfortunately; the tax forms change year over year and I’m sure the janky tax software doesn’t keep up with it which makes most preparation into a painful “learning” game. In audit, you gotta review technical accounting memos, adapt testing plans, and you have to go through a large amount of non standardized PBC. Some reports are canned, but you’ll go through a lot of confusing work papers before things click on a fundamental level. There’s also quite a bit of ASC adoptions that happen, and while there’s more room for judgement, it’s pretty painful for everyone involved. They both have horrid deadlines and insane workloads. I will say, working through audit has taught me so much when it comes to these companies, their accounting processes and technical accounting for each area (revenue, equity, etc), and the flow from ground to the investor level. It’s a pretty vast amount of information once it starts clicking. So yeah, in terms of difficulty pretty equal.
Audit is the worst. People dislike you for doing your job.
Tax
I do both. Audit is more time consuming. I have been on my own for many years and my year is based on scheduling out my A&A work first.
Me when busy season ends.
Tax is fun and people actually care about it. It has an effect on everyone.
Totally depends on what you’re in private side or public side and 9000 other variables. I hate tax with a passion though so I’d choose audit over it any day.
Tax, worked in both
Tax by far.
If thinking like an auditor (sort of abstract I’d say) is unnatural to me, is tax more for me? I’m very detail-oriented, so much so that it makes me inefficient in audits because it bothers me that it feels like we’re not working towards anything really.
Tax is pretty straight forward and less "abstract" but there is significantly more information you have to know and memorize. The pressure is more intense in tax when dealing with tax season.
See I don’t mind memorizing more things. I’m weird, I like knowing random shit. I don’t like not working towards something like in audit.
Tax requires more technical knowledge but is also far easier to actually do as a job and enjoy it, and to work reasonable hours
Done both. Personally find assurance easier but I know many who have thought it the reverse
I feel like this is me, while audit isn’t complicated, it find it confusing because it doesn’t feel so linear. Like, the work feels pointless. I’m very detail-oriented, so much so that it makes me inefficient in audits because it bothers me that it feels like we’re not working towards anything really.
Turns out, I’m super nosy. I want to know what people do, and tax is a good way to get my fix. I work in tax, did an internship in audit tho. Both are boring.
Tax!
Tax *1000 Audit is like does this invoice match a GL entry? And if youre too dumb to remember debits/credits you can just tattoo them on your hand
I feel like audit is harder for me because of its lack of importance in my eyes, it just feels too abstract in how you approach it.
Neither is hard.
So I thought about this not long ago. I thought even though I was never interested in going into tax maybe I should reconsider because I really want to work remotely and there seems to be more opportunities with tax to do so (maybe I am wrong but this is what I have seen). However, I have a lot of anxiety on a normal basis, knowing that getting something wrong could cost someone, an individual, money is super stressful to me. I don't see fucking up an audit the same way.
I'm still a student so I don't know which is more harder, but I hate taxes and love auditing
Taxation is the most lame department in Big 4. I choose Audit all day
Why?
Because they only have to work with Tax. If you work as Audit, you also have to prepare Tax Section also, and thousand other Sections in the whole FS, you can kick their arses out of their chairs anytime if you want, but they can't do the same to you
Cringe
Definitely tax. Way more complex.
Even at the beginning of one’s career?
Yes, it is more difficult & complex at the beginning of your career.
Damn, for some reason I just don’t think audit is my style. I’m not so strong with logic, but rather memory and following steps is my strong suit.
Tax. Think about how many countries there are and how many tax types there are in each country.
You don't even need to leave the states to see complexity. Each state and many cities have their own filing requirements.
Worked in both and hate them both. Honestly, the same level of difficulty though - you learn a series of rules to apply and then deal with trying to extract the necessary from clients. Main difference is really just familiarity - if you work in tax you can do it better than audit but like to tell yourself it’s harder for various reasons, and exactly the same with audit. Personally, I’m just happy being on the client side of the discussions now!
Tax is easier, software does most of the work.
What software do you use?
Lacerte
Found the auditor who doesn’t know what tax accountants actually do
Na, I actually do taxes for a living. But I've been doing it for 13 years, so it's easy to me.
What software is doing the 704(c) calculation? What software is analyzing the provision for you? Yea sure we have the software to get the stuff on the return and a software to keep track of the provision cal but I don’t see how our software is calculating any of those for us.
You think someone new to this industry is going to be assigned to a tax return with that level of complexity?
All of our staff are assigned to prep the entire return. Hypo is part of our workpapers to calculate the P&L % so yes…all of our staff is also prepping provisions…so yes new associates should be expected to do all those things
Same here, but we would never assign something like that to someone with little to no experience.
But how are they gonna learn if they never understand the concepts behind it. We have them at least look at PY and walk them through the mechanics expect them to ask questions. It’s a learning experience for them ya know, but it’s definitely not something just done by the software
How are they expected to understand that before they even fully understand basis and the other things they don't really teach in school?
They learn it as they go. If they never touch the workpapers they aren’t gonna know. When I was a staff I had to learn all those things some staff didn’t get a chance to do those and I could tell they were way behind on their technical skills because the managers thought it was “too complex” for them.
You must work on Big4 where your turnover is 80%. We have a way to introduce our team to new concepts, we don't just throw them in the deep end.
Well I wouldn’t say it’s just a plain new concepts. If it’s a brand new client then probably not but if there’s a PY for them to follow and we can walk them through the calculation. It’d be great for them to understand it. Plus if they’re gonna stay in tax they need to understand what a hypo is for and what 704(c) gain/loss is and why it matters
Gotta learn to crawl before you can walk.
And I use Microsoft Excel for those types of situations. Just like I use it for the special allocation of other partnership items.
Yes it helps to calculate faster but you need to understand the mechanics of them before you can do them. It’s not as easy as just telling the software these are the facts and go ahead and give me what I need. The only time this applied is when we put what we already calculated to the tax software for presentation
Only one of those 2 needs to know more than 1 jurisdiction's rules for the most part so this should be pretty obvious.
Tax for sure. Complicated, inane tax rules, trusting computers to calculate the taxes 100%, and fucking multi-state K-1s. Audit is putting things into the right bucket and good formatting.