My name is Dmytro Serheeiv. I’m a professional tax specialist with more than 10 years of experience in the private, public accounting, and government sectors. I’m currently a self-employed tax consultant and the leading tax consultant at PDFLiner.

My typical day

I had a small office near the central IRS department in my city, where both individuals and businesses came to me to receive instant consultations and direct tax assistance.

The typical day at the office included meeting individuals and entrepreneurs in random order and amount. it’s totally impossible to predict how many clients you will have during the day because all people have different tax profiles. However, I always expect to spend nights and days at the office when the tax day comes. Hordes of people start feeling nervous about their taxes and literally run to me in sweat to get quick help without complications. I even hire 1-2 assistants from the state’s tax law university to get help and provide them with intensive practice all at once.

Now I process all the requests online due to the pandemic. The entire workflow has become moderately paced and virtually non-emotional as I rarely meet people face to face to get access to their documentation. I usually wake up early in the morning to reach my desk at around 7 AM and start getting through my mail to fish out all the tasks and schedule them up for the day. In most cases, I have a surplus of tasks and delegate the simplest of them to students online to pay more attention to urgent and complicated cases.

Pros

One of the biggest benefits of being a tax specialist is independence and high earning potential. Most of us start from relatively low wages but reach surprisingly high yearly checks by gaining reputation and expanding the client base. It’s also very important to remember that most of your clients will need help seasonally, which means working late hours every day by the end of each financial year.

I really enjoy getting through documentation like a knife through butter, it feels great to me. I also love to see the relief on the faces of my clients, who are usually so stressed by all those forms.

Cons

It’s probably also the biggest disadvantage of my job because nervous people don’t always formulate their needs well enough, so I have to figure out the details like a professional detective.

You also have to spend a lot of time and nerves to reach the point of financial satisfaction as clients see you as a nobody when you start. That’s why I highly recommend gaining expertise in respected companies before starting your own business in the field.

You should also be ready to invest quite a lot of money into professional software when you start working independently.

Advice for students interested in this career path

There are many tax consultants on the market. You may feel like there are too many of them and it impossible to compete, but that’s not true, actually. Work hard to gain the best field experience. Start practicing in companies from the very first year in the university and you will realize that the competition isn’t that intense for those who know more than others. Update your knowledge base all the time to keep up with the development of the niche and you will be able to provide effective help to customers and gain their trust quite easily. Customers usually return to good tax consultants, so building a client base is much easier than in, say, the real estate niche.