Say you meet someone and are chit-chatting with them and you both get around to talking about the other person’s job. The other person says to you that he or she is a “tax lawyer.”
What image pops into your head? What *specifically *do you think the person does all day? What types of other people do you think the tax lawyer would have to speak with to do his or her job? If the tax lawyer told you that they do transactional stuff and not litigation, has this additional bit of information clarified the person’s job or has it not really added much?
(As you’ve probably guessed, I’m a tax lawyer, and I’ve found that many people I talk with don’t have any idea what I do; I’m wondering if this is particular to the people I’ve talked to or whether tax lawyering is such a weird little niche that most people don’t know (or can’t guess) exactly what it entails).
Thanks! I guess after a few responses I’ll provide the “model answer” (I know you’ll all eagerly await that . . .)
I realize this thread has a bit of a “Look at Me!!” flavor about it, but I trust that you’ll believe me when I say I don’t mean it that way.
I always thought that a tax lawyer was someone who helped wealthy clients avoid paying their fair share of the tax burden by finding all of the loopholes that have been incorporated into the tax code.
I have no idea what ‘transactional stuff’ means, so that clarification wouldn’t help me.
As I understand it (from working at a Big-4 accounting firm), a “Tax Lawyer”, much like a tax accountant, helps a client to determine how much tax they owe the government, how to avoid tax-related, legal exposure, where they should place their money to minimize taxes, etc.
Surreal - You do understand that as long as an individual or corporation follows the tax laws, they are paying their “fair share”, right? If you feel the tax laws unfairly favor the wealthy, that’s one thing, but you can’t blame anyone for trying to minimize their tax obligation as long as it’s within the confines of the law, regardless of how creative it may seem.
I don’t have nearly the same cynical outlook about tax lawyers as does Surreal. I would suspect a fair amount of a tax lawyer’s time is taken up with preparing businesses and private individuals for IRS audits. I suspect that, since the tax code changes, often dramatically, every year, tax lawyers are useful in advising on the legality or illegality of investment or tax-shelter strategies.
Actually, I don’t have a specific impression of what a tax lawyer does. My brain classifies it in the category of jobs that pays well, but mostly involves a lot of boring and complicated paperwork. (See Accounting.) Probably interesting to someone, but not me.
Actually, based on my own experience with the IRS (may they go away forever) – I hope some of you are working with people like me to get pesky situations like mine resolved favorably for me.
A tax lawyer is the person I should hire to help me settle my tax dispute with the state of Oklahoma.
My ideas of tax lawyers:
I feel they are the type to have all the rules to all board/card games memorized. They are into the minutia of things. They wear dark plain clothing but underneath they wear exciting and unusual underwear. They probably wear glasses. They suffer from outdoor allergies. They can cacluate compound interest in their heads.
Hmmm. When someone tells me that he is a tax lawyer, I assume some nice meals with good wine are coming my way. If I met a female tax lawyer, I don’t know what I would think.
I would say that you spend your time working with clients to help them comply with the law. I would expect you to work with the client’s accountants, both in house and retained, and also to work with the decision makers to help them structure their decisions in the most tax advantagous way possible. As a transactional tax guy, I would think you would spend a fair amount of time examinign ramifications of proposed actions in order to determine what, if any, tax impacts those proposals might have. The litigators, I would imagine, are more concerned with cleaning up the mess that the transactional guys make when they screw up.
Judging from all of the recent commercials that have been on TV recently a tax lawyer cuts a deal with the IRS for deadbeats who don’t want to pay their share of the tax load.
Myself, the first thing that runs through my mind is similar to what msmith537 said. Well, actually the first thing that runs through my mind is “I wonder if he needs a paralegal.”
Well, if you mostly work for private clients, I would think that you generally determine a client’s wealth and estate planning objectives, and advise them of a suitable strategy and structure to obtain the most beneficial outcome, while making sure they understand the risks and outcomes of their plan.
In practical terms, you probably work with establishing and structuring trusts, shelf companies, partnerships and other structures. You probably work closely with accountants and financial planners. You probably don’t do the day to day accounting ‘grunt’ work of preparing returns etc.
You probably do business succession planning and estate planning using wills, partnership agreements, buy/sell agreements and option agreements.
As someone who is about to get a law degree from a school with one of the best programs in taxation, I don’t have the faintest clue. I imagine they mostly help big corporations avoid paying taxes, but I don’t know how that translates into day-to-day work. I also don’t know what lawyers in big firms do generally. I thought about asking someone once, but it seemed too boring to talk about. Do you like your job? I don’t understand what the appeal of taxation is, but that’s just me.
Bastard child of an attorney and an accountant. Sometimes secretly wishes he had become an actuary. Makes the big bucks. Secretly thinks doctors are financial retards. Enjoys playing head games with dangerous IRS bureaucrats. Checks the weather report before he goes out. Always wears clean, non-torn underwear.
Once again, the great folks of the SDMB have proven themselves smarter than the average bear.
Some people think I fill out tax returns or other tax forms all day, which really irks the crap out of me. I didn’t go to law school for three years to learn to write neatly and check the right boxes! Sheesh!
So here’s what I do all day (which will be shown by utilizing the grand common law method of getting to general principles by responding to specific facts on successive occasions):
:rolleyes:
Thanks to the other poster who told this Surreal what’s what on this: if the law says Surreal is entitled to a $50 bill every Monday, then other folks shouldn’t think Surreal is cheating or something if he shows up on Monday looking for the fifty bucks.
Nail, head, you got it. BUT I rarely get into actual numbers; the client itself or it’s accounting firm does that, I just help to interpret the rules used to arrive at those numbers.
My undergrad degree was in liberal arts (I have a BS in BS–har har), so I’m not too into crunchin’.
The two branches on the tax lawyer tree are “Controversy” and “Transactional.” I’m a transactional guy, so I don’t prepare clients for audits or attend audits or anything, I just structure transactions. In a way, though, I am preparing clients for audits, but the audit may not be for many years in the future.
Word. Tax shelter regulation has recently changed dramatically, and it’s been fun.
You are SO wrong, dude! (but not about the money part )
It’s the corporate lawyers that do boring paperwork all day. I’m actually talking to people, reading the law, formulating arguments, supporting and attacking those arguments to make them stronger, and such stuff all day long. The corporate guys are looking for typos in documents and pulling out the documents for last deal they did to change the name of the client, dates and dollar amounts.
Cool, are you also one of the few and the proud?
OK, you must have cheated: dead on.
Actually, there’s a third branch on the tax lawyer tree, called “Estate Planning,” the description of which you pretty much nailed there.
Also, in addition to the stuff mentioned above, I also do a fair amount of bankruptcy tax, which involves valuing and maximizing the tax assets of a company in bankruptcy, etc.
Well, thanks for letting me talk about myself for a while here, that’s always fun!!
P.S. chula where are you going to school? You seriously should look into tax law if you have the faintest interest in business or transactional work. Most of the corporate/business transaction folks that started with me are hating life so badly right now because the stuff they do is mainly tedious and boring and not at all intellectually challenging or satisfying.
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