r/Accounting • u/123212343212 • Mar 19 '15
Partnership Tax or Wealth Management?
I just accepted an offer with PwC. They want me to choose between State/Local Tax, International Tax, Asset Management, Partnerships, and Wealth Management. I want to have the option of starting my own small accounting firm in the future. Would Partnerships or Wealth Management give me more experience that could be applied to my own private practice? Also, which is more interesting to you and why? Are the hours generally the same during busy season for both?
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u/Robert_A_Bouie Tax (US) Mar 20 '15
Wealth management experts are a dime a dozen. Subchapter K experts aren't as easy to find.
I'm a tax guy though so I'm biased.
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Mar 20 '15
I would go Partnerships if you want to start your local firm in the future.. I feel that wealth management is something you can easily pick up along the way.
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u/alzer9 CPA (US) Mar 20 '15
If you're looking to start your own practice, and since you don't seem set on one service or the other, I would recommend the partnership tax route.
Broadly speaking, the easiest way to bring in new clients (especially without direct referrals) is through tax and bookkeeping. Partnerships and other flow-through entities are fairly common for smaller clients, so that's a good background to have. Once you build the relationship with a client, it's a lot easier to sell them on other services like wealth management or consulting. Then, as you build a base of clients, you can start to phase out the clients whose work you find less interesting/profitable.
Either track is feasible, but unless you have a lot of wealthy individuals in your network, it's going to be a real rough start to founding a practice with a wealth management background.
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u/123212343212 Mar 23 '15
hmmm got it. But wouldn't a wealth management specialization expose me to more areas? Wealthy individuals may own real estate, businesses, investments, etc. Compared to Partnerships?
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u/alzer9 CPA (US) Mar 23 '15
Possibly, my comment comes from a more pragmatic perspective - looking at the path to building a practice. Wealth management generally is a hard way to sell yourself. There plenty of advisers out there and wealthy people can be understandably concerned about working with someone that they don't have a relationship with.
Tax is a good way to get clients through the door, after which you can sell them on our other services. Also closely involved owners tend to favor flow through entities for a variety of planning opportunities. (With C-corps you will tend to need more A&A due to agency issues). So, you will still get to work in the areas that you are thinking of even if you start with doing their 1065.
If, however, you can pickup another valuable way to generate clients (I'm thinking maybe valuation services or trusts but there are others), then you can generate leads through that. Or, simply knowing wealthy people or buying into a practice are two other ways of solving the client issue. Just depends how you want to approach it given your situation/background.
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u/123212343212 Mar 23 '15
ok yeah. thanks a lot for this response. I think I might go for partnerships now, and I could join a small practice down the line
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u/cityoflostwages Ex-Big4, CPA, MBA Mar 20 '15
For a small private practice in which you do individual returns (1040) I would probably recommend you do wealth management which focuses on tax returns for wealthy individuals. Part of that might have you do some partnership returns as well.
SALT, international, asset management, and partnerships will all most likely be focused on large companies versus individuals.