A Tax Consultant in Santa Ana, CA is a tax expert who helps clients minimize their tax obligations and increase their savings. A tax consultant is typically more experienced than a tax preparer and can give enhanced expertise to fulfill clients’ needs. They might also specialize in offering tax consulting services for a particular type of client, such as a personal tax consultant or a business tax consultant. Tax consultants might own their own business or work for a professional service firm, such as a specialty tax consulting firm. They even find employment in government agencies, corporate tax offices and nonprofits.

What does a tax consultant do?

Typical responsibilities for a tax consultant when working with clients consist of:

• Meeting with clients and discussing their financial information and taxable income
• Determining potential deductions a client might be entitled to
• Preparing clients’ tax returns and providing the lowest obligation possible for the client
• Helping with complex tax considerations, such as rental properties and capital gains
• Minimizing tax liability in retirement or planning in advance for events
• Advising on significant life events and their tax implications, such as inheritance, marriage or divorce and the birth of children
• Making suggestions to clients to improve their tax filing or simplify the process, such as making estimated payments throughout the year

Tax consultant skills

When pursuing a profession as a tax consultant, it can be useful to acquire these essential skills:

Accounting

Accounting abilities allow you to work with financial documents correctly. As a tax consultant, a significant portion of the job you do includes examining the records of clients, determining important information and completing calculations with that information. Expert abilities in accounting can help you accurately and successfully provide results for your clients.

Attention to detail

Attention to detail enables you to examine a document or circumstance and identify any important pieces of information, both big and small. As a tax consultant, attention to detail is a helpful skill when examining a client’s financial records and reviewing their finances with them. It enables you to note key information in their financial records and identify key questions to ask so you have a complete understanding of their financial situation when making tax recommendations.

Communication

Communication skills allow you to share information and obtain information from others with clarity and precision. As a tax consultant, it’s valuable to have practical verbal and also written communication skills. This allows you to communicate efficiently with your clients to ensure that you understand each other, allowing you to offer premium consultation for their tax needs.

Financial management

Financial management skills involve the ability to understand finances and make responsible decisions related to financial information. As a tax consultant, financial management skills can help you offer actionable guidance to your clients. You might use your financial management expertise to their financial situation, then conduct an evaluation to identify financial habits you believe would be most valuable to your client to lower their tax obligations.

Math

Math skills allow you to perform calculations by applying the correct equations and accurately calculating the results. Basic tax preparation requires mathematical ability, but the identification and estimation of tax savings involved in consulting requires greater mathematical skill. Besides allowing you to determine which calculations to perform, these skills can help you more accurately estimate any expected outcomes. They can help you recognize areas where calculation mistakes might have occurred and allow you to check your work to confirm its accuracy.

Organization

Organizational skills help you manage files in an orderly system to make it easier to find them when needed. This may apply both to physical organization of records as well as organization of digital files in your computer system. As a tax consultant working with several clients, organization skills can help you manage the documents associated with each client in a system and efficiently access them when needed. This saves you time and also helps you avoid losing any records for a client.

Tax law

Knowledge of applicable tax laws is necessary for performing your tax preparation and consulting responsibilities. This allows you to know the rules and regulations which apply to the taxes your client files. As a tax consultant, you may apply your tax expertise when seeking potential deductions or other areas of savings for a client. You may also apply your tax law expertise to ensure compliance for your clients, helping them stay within the laws when submitting their taxes.

Tax consultants offer helpful guidance to clients, which can help them save considerably on their tax filings. Working as a tax consultant might be an appealing career choice for individuals with good financial skills that enjoy assisting others. Learning more regarding this job can help you determine if it’s an appealing career possibility for you.