The week started with an offer to move my blog over to a network (no thank you) and ended with a marriage proposal (also no thank you) – all in all, not a bad week. The one complaint I had was that, by turning down the latter, I missed my potential suitor’s offer to “set up camp outside your offices and serenade you with melodious tax regulations until you accepted my proposal.” I’m not gonna lie, that sounds a little bit awesome.
With the knowledge that no other email could top that this week, I’m opening up the taxgirl mailbag:
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Taxpayer asks:
Hello-
I was searching for stats on how many cellphones are paid for by employers (really, by anyone other than the end user), and I came across this taxgirl post: http://www.taxgirl.com/dialing-up-trouble-irs-tries-to-enforce-cell-phone-fringe-benefits/
In it, you state that 5.5 million people have a cell phone service paid for directly by their employer. I have two questions:
1. Could you point me to where you were able to find that info?
2. It sounds like that figure doesn’t include those whose cellphone costs are either partially or entirely reimbursed by their employer. Is that correct? Any idea where I might be able to find that number?
Thanks for your help. By the way, I’ll be passing your blog along to my girlfriend, a Big Four auditor who would like to know a bit more about tax issues.
taxgirl says:
Thanks for the question. I usually try to link to my sources and I goofed on that one. It was from the LA Times. Here’s the link. Unfortunately, I don’t have any additional data – so I can’t answer your second question.
Thanks for reading – and for passing my blog along to your girlfriend!
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Taxpayer asks:
I have a career question for you. I am not here looking for job, just some career advice if you could spare the time.
I graduated law school in 2002 and have been working at the same firm for about 6 years doing the same thing – workers compensation, personal injury, and some union stuff. I am looking to switch gears and get started with tax. I wanted to do it when I first graduated law school but couldn’t find anything since I had no experience. I think I am going to get my LLM, I just wanted to get your thoughts on the subject. Other than the LLM, is there anything else that would make me more appealing to employers in tax? Ultimately, I would like to get a job with the IRS.
Thank you for any advice you can give me.
taxgirl says:
Unfortunately, it sounds like you’ve fallen victim to the ol’ law firm pigeonhole. This happens to lots of attorneys. If the firm can use you in one capacity, they’ll just keep using you and using you in that area.
One solution, as you mentioned, is to get your LLM in Tax. That would definitely make you appealing to IRS and it might make you more appealing to potential employers. It depends, though. You have to be careful as it’s not a panacea. One of my good friends wanted to get out of insurance defense so she went to NYU to get her LLM in Tax. She was immediately hired by a BigLaw firm as a tax attorney – until they realized that she had litigation experience. So they kept pulling her back to litigation. It is a danger and in this market, many attorneys are willing to take a job no matter what it’s in.
That said, practical aspects aside, I’m a big believer in doing what makes you happy. If tax makes you happy, I say do what you can to get out of the other and into tax. You don’t have to leap to the LLM in Tax as a first step. A good place to start might be to volunteer with an IRS VITA (volunteer income tax assistance) program. You can do some good work, get some experience, beef up your resume and meet other tax professionals.
I highly recommend networking with other tax professionals to make sure that you want to make the switch. Consider taking a couple of Tax Law CLEs and go chat with the presenters. Find a mentor. Ask lots of questions. Go out to lunch with a tax attorney and pick his or her brain. Familiarizing yourself with the ins and outs of the profession can only help when it comes to landing and acing interviews.
Thanks for writing and I wish you the best of luck!
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Taxpayer asks:
Hi Taxgirl,
First of all, I must say that your blog is absolutely delightful! Truthfully? I really enjoy your personality. It permeates through the blog like no other and its flat-out awesome.
Ok ok, I know you’re a busy gal, so enough of my jibberish.
This is my problem, and I need your professional – wise advice.
Stats: I am 22 years old. I just graduated from grad school with my Masters in Accounting. I have my Certified Fraud Examiners License (CFE) and I am currently studying for my CPA exam. I work as an auditor for Grant Thornton (I’m almost sure you’ve heard the name before).
Situation: I am on a 8 week detail in our tax department to help them out (since they have so much work). Now while I am doing this, I enjoy a few things about it. I enjoy the tax programs we use more than i do the programs in audit. I enjoy the people I work with more than I do in audit. I also enjoy the fact that the very essence of a good tax professional is one who can successfully follow the Code while still helping individuals (or corporations) save as much money on their taxes as they can. Overall, I dont love audit. Neither do I love tax. But I am convinced that I enjoy tax more than I do audit.
Problem: I am thinking about making the switch over to tax (from audit). I am scared though. I know audit experience is valuable (especially when you have between 5-8 years of it). And if I decided to do tax work, then that would probably mean I should get my JD (which I have thought about and not opposed to doing). But I mean, I dont want to get stuck in some office reading forms or doing legal who-bla. Honestly? the thing that i REALLY want to do? I want to help people. I want to help someone. I want someone (maybe not directly but still…) to look at me and say thank you for giving me something that I could not attain myself. Does that make sense?
I need a bit of guidance… and you being a mom, well, haha i figured you could still look at me as a little boy in the big boys playground! Would you please help me? I could use your experience.
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart,
taxgirl says:
Wow. Where to begin? First, see above where I advise that I think you should follow your heart, do what you love, etc.
And now, since you brought it up, here’s what the mom in me has to say: I’m not sure that the legal profession is what you’re looking for. I will brace myself for the barrage of hate email by telling you what was true in my own experience with the caveat that it is just that, my own experience. I can’t speak for tax attorneys everywhere. So here goes:
A *lot* of being a lawyer is sitting in an office. At least on the transactional side (I don’t know about trial work). If you’re at a big firm, it’s completely conceivable that you won’t be assigned to much outside of the office (much less with clients) for the first few years of practice.
Whether or not you’re going to help anyone depends on where you practice and what you do. Before I started my own firm, I couldn’t say that I really helped anyone. I was one of those kids who went to law school for all of the reasons that you stated. I wanted to make a difference, to help people. And yes, it was terribly Pollyanna but it was what I really believed. I was shocked to find out that I didn’t have much say in what I did at all. Small firm or bigger firm, I did what I was told. Rarely did anyone say thank you, especially those in charge. And not every client is looking for “help” in the sense that you described. This really smacked me in the face the day that I was sitting in a beautiful office listening to a client gleefully describe how he cheated the system. I remember thinking that I couldn’t do this anymore. I thought I hated tax and the law. I didn’t. I just hated where I was. I started my own firm (together with my husband) – that was ten years ago. Now, I can say that I do help people and I do make a difference. But it’s not at all like I thought it would be.
You also need to realize that law school is long and it’s expensive. In this economy, it’s also not a guaranteed job. In fact, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that you could rack up six-figure debt and have no legal job to show for it.
I’m not trying to talk you out of going to law school or trying to be pessimistic about the profession. Actually, it’s just the opposite. I’m telling you that it’s worth it to find what it is that you love, that makes you happy. I’m not sure that you know what that is yet. Before you take the big step of going to law school, why not explore what else is out there? Make a list of all of the things you love to do, that make you want to get up in the morning. Then make a list of the things you’re good at. And see where it takes you.
I don’t think you have to have all of the answers at age 22. You have a lot of time to figure that out. And I don’t think you have to plan every second of your career in advance – if you read the blog regularly, you’ll know that I fell into tax. I certainly didn’t go to law school thinking I was going to be a tax attorney. But I also kind of knew in my heart for my whole life that I was going to be a lawyer – my great-grandmother in SC told everyone she knew that I talked like a “Philadelphia lawyer.”
My final words: follow your heart but be smart. Pay attention to what’s going on around you. Sometimes, life is pushing you in a different direction than you planned – but you have to be aware enough to figure it out.
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Thanks for reading. And if I may, can I ask a favor? My dad is having surgery at Duke tomorrow. If you’re at all religious (or heck, even if you’re not), my family would appreciate your thoughts and prayers this week.
Before you go: be sure to read my disclaimer. Remember, I’m a lawyer and we love disclaimers.
If you have a question, here’s how to Ask The Taxgirl.
Praying for Your Dad, Your Family, and the medical pros involved.
Kelly – I appreciate your advice in response to the last letter. Definitely goes to show that I’m gleaning more from Taxgirl than just tax law updates. 🙂
Will definitely be praying for your dad.
Just a thought to add to your comments to the 2 people who were seeking career guidance — consider becoming an enrolled agent. Much less time required than getting a law degree, all we do is tax (which hopefully helps our clients), and many job postings are for a CPA or an enrolled agent (at least by enlightened employers!) Definitely makes one more employable in a tax position, especially to the IRS. Or,instead of passing the exam, you can become an enrolled agent by working a certain number (maybe 5?) years for the IRS.
I can only echo Kelly’s sage wisdom with respect to the career advice. The one thing I’ll add, having been teaching tax law for something like 10 years now, is that many students enter law school thinking they’ll specialize in one thing, and leave with their eyes fixed on a wholly different field. I started law school thinking I’d be a “Sovietologist,” for example (having undregrad degrees in int’l relatations, Russian, and poli sci), and I left as a tax lawyer. Go figure. And I’ve had many a student who’ll come into my class thinking tax law is for schmucks (not an unreasonable presumption) and leaving my class totally enamored with everything about Subchapter K. The opposite is often also true, however, and occurs at least as often as the former. Bottom line: if you go to law school, go with an open mind. You’re likely to be surprised at what it is that really gets your motor running.
And the very best wishes for your dad, Kelly. I’m not religious, but my daughters are so I’ll ask them to light candles at their services this evening. They’ll be delighted to do so. ~RKM~
What?! You turned down the marriage proposal. If you are not going to accept it, could you send him my way then?