About the Opportunity
An established Southern California CPA firm is conducting a confidential search for an experienced Director of Tax & Practice Operations to join its leadership team.
This is a senior level opportunity for an accomplished CPA who combines strong technical tax expertise with the ability to manage client relationships, supervise professional staff, oversee complex tax engagements, and contribute to the day to day operation and continued development of an established accounting practice.
The Director will work closely with firm leadership and will assume significant responsibility for the quality, timeliness, profitability, and delivery of the firm's tax services.
This position is designed for someone ready to move beyond the traditional Tax Manager role. The successful candidate should be capable of independently reviewing complex tax work, making sound professional decisions, managing sophisticated clients, developing staff, improving internal processes, and taking responsibility for results.
This is a primarily remote position, but the successful candidate must reside in Southern California and be available for in person client and firm meetings when necessary.
The firm's office presence associated with this position will be in the West Los Angeles / West Hollywood area.
Because the firm serves Russian speaking clients, professional fluency in both Russian and English is required. The successful candidate must be comfortable discussing sophisticated tax, accounting, financial, and business matters professionally in either language.
The firm's identity will be disclosed to qualified candidates during the interview process. All applications and discussions will be handled confidentially.
Key Responsibilities
Tax Leadership and Technical Review
- Prepare and review complex federal and California income tax returns for individuals, corporations, S corporations, partnerships, trusts, and estates.
- Review Forms 1040, 1065, 1120, 1120S, 1041, and other applicable federal and state filings.
- Perform senior level technical review of tax returns, workpapers, supporting schedules, and calculations prepared by professional staff.
- Research and resolve complex federal, California, and multistate tax matters.
- Independently identify tax, accounting, and compliance issues and determine appropriate solutions.
- Identify tax planning opportunities and provide practical recommendations based on each client's circumstances.
- Review extensions, estimated tax calculations, projections, tax notices, and other compliance matters.
- Assist with the resolution of IRS, California, and other state tax notices and correspondence.
- Maintain current knowledge of changes in federal and California tax laws and ensure relevant changes are incorporated into firm procedures and client recommendations.
- Maintain high standards for accuracy, documentation, regulatory compliance, and professional judgment.
Tax Engagement Management
- Manage tax engagements from initial planning through final review and delivery.
- Establish engagement scope, responsibilities, timelines, priorities, and deadlines.
- Coordinate preparation and review activities among professional staff.
- Monitor engagement progress and ensure federal, state, and client deadlines are met.
- Identify missing information, technical problems, workflow issues, and potential delays before they affect an engagement.
- Ensure appropriate workpapers, documentation, and review procedures are maintained.
- Monitor engagement budgets, time, billing, realization, and resource utilization.
- Identify engagements exceeding expected time or budget and determine the underlying cause.
- Take corrective action when engagements are falling behind schedule, exceeding budget, or failing to meet firm quality standards.
- Maintain accountability for the accuracy, quality, timeliness, and profitability of assigned engagements.
Client Relationship Management
- Serve as a senior point of contact for assigned clients.
- Develop a comprehensive understanding of clients' businesses, ownership structures, financial circumstances, tax positions, and ongoing needs.
- Communicate directly with business owners, individuals, executives, and other client representatives.
- Explain complex tax and accounting matters clearly and practically.
- Conduct client meetings professionally in both Russian and English.
- Provide responsive advice regarding tax planning, compliance, and related financial matters.
- Proactively identify tax planning opportunities, potential compliance concerns, and client service issues.
- Manage sensitive or escalated client matters professionally and independently.
- Take responsibility for client responsiveness, satisfaction, and retention.
- Develop long term relationships with clients based on technical competence, responsiveness, professionalism, and trust.
- Attend in person client meetings throughout the Los Angeles area when necessary.
Staff Leadership and Development
- Supervise, mentor, and provide technical guidance to tax and accounting professionals.
- Review work prepared by professional staff and provide detailed and constructive technical feedback.
- Establish clear expectations regarding quality, productivity, communication, documentation, accountability, and deadlines.
- Provide technical training and professional development to junior and senior staff.
- Identify technical knowledge, performance, or workflow deficiencies and work with firm leadership to address them.
- Help develop standardized review procedures, templates, checklists, and quality control standards.
- Promote accountability and proactive communication throughout the tax team.
- Coordinate effectively with both US based and remote professional staff.
- Help establish a collaborative environment in which local and remote professionals operate as one integrated tax team.
The position is intended to complement a sophisticated remote tax operation. The firm's existing remote Practice Lead has experience managing more than 180 US tax engagements and supervising more than 30 tax professionals, providing a strong operational and technical foundation for the practice.
Practice Operations and Leadership
- Work closely with firm leadership on the day to day operation of the tax practice.
- Assist with scheduling, workload planning, resource allocation, and deadline management.
- Monitor workflow across active tax engagements.
- Help establish priorities during periods of high workload and tax season.
- Monitor engagement billing, realization, collections, and profitability.
- Identify operational inefficiencies and recommend practical solutions.
- Develop and implement standardized workflows, operating procedures, review processes, and quality control measures.
- Identify opportunities to use technology and automation to improve productivity and reduce repetitive work.
- Improve coordination between tax preparation, review, client communication, billing, and engagement completion.
- Participate in staffing, workflow, client service, and other operational decisions affecting the practice.
- Help establish scalable processes that support the continued growth of the firm.
- Work with firm leadership to establish and monitor performance standards for the tax practice.
- Contribute to strategic discussions regarding the continued development and financial performance of the firm.
Required Qualifications
- Active CPA license.
- Minimum of 8 to 10 years of recent public accounting experience.
- Significant experience preparing and reviewing federal and state tax returns.
- Strong knowledge of federal taxation.
- Strong knowledge of California taxation.
- Extensive experience with individual and business taxation.
- Strong experience with Forms 1040, 1065, 1120, and 1120S.
- Experience with trust and estate taxation strongly preferred.
- Experience reviewing complex tax returns prepared by other professionals.
- Demonstrated ability to independently identify and resolve complex tax issues.
- Experience managing tax engagements from planning through completion.
- Experience supervising, mentoring, and developing professional staff.
- Experience communicating directly with sophisticated individual and business clients.
- Experience managing multiple engagements and competing deadlines simultaneously.
- Strong tax research and analytical capabilities.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- Strong organizational and time management skills.
- Ability to exercise independent professional judgment.
- Ability to operate effectively and remain accountable in a primarily remote environment.
- Professional fluency in Russian and English.
- Must reside in Southern California within reasonable traveling distance of the West Los Angeles and West Hollywood areas.
- Ability and willingness to attend in person client and firm meetings when required.
Preferred Qualifications
Preference will be given to candidates with experience involving:
- California based public accounting practices
- High net worth individuals
- Closely held and family owned businesses
- Partnerships and S corporations
- Trusts and estates
- Multistate taxation
- Tax planning and projections
- IRS and California tax notices
- Engagement budgeting and realization
- Billing and collections
- Practice management
- Managing distributed or remote professional teams
- Process improvement and workflow development
- Tax technology and automation
The Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate is more than an experienced tax preparer or reviewer.
We are looking for someone who can review, manage, lead, communicate, and make sound professional decisions independently.
The successful candidate should be technically strong enough to identify issues in complex tax work, experienced enough to provide direction to other professionals, and confident enough to represent the firm directly with sophisticated clients.
This individual must be comfortable taking responsibility for an engagement rather than simply completing assigned tasks.
When a problem arises, the Director is expected to identify the issue, determine what information is required, establish a course of action, coordinate the appropriate resources, communicate with the client or firm leadership when necessary, and follow the matter through completion.
The ideal candidate will have an ownership mentality toward client service, quality, deadlines, staff performance, engagement profitability, and the overall success of the practice.
This position is best suited for an experienced CPA who wants to have a meaningful role in the management and continued development of an established accounting practice.
Work Arrangement and Local Travel
This is a primarily remote position based in Southern California.
Regular daily office attendance is not required. However, this is not a location independent position.
The successful candidate must reside within reasonable traveling distance of the West Los Angeles and West Hollywood areas and must be available to attend in person meetings when business needs require.
Local travel may include:
- Client meetings
- Meetings with firm leadership
- Tax planning and advisory meetings
- Meetings involving significant or sensitive client matters
- Other business activities requiring an in person presence
The firm's office presence associated with this position will be within the West Los Angeles / West Hollywood area.
Compensation and Profit Sharing
In addition to the base salary, the firm provides an opportunity to participate in a profit sharing bonus program.
The employee will become eligible for profit sharing after successfully completing six months of employment and meeting the performance expectations and goals established by the firm.
Profit sharing is intended to reward meaningful contributions to the performance and continued success of the practice.
Performance considerations may include:
- Quality and accuracy of tax work and technical review
- Successful management of engagements and filing deadlines
- Client service, responsiveness, satisfaction, and retention
- Leadership and development of professional staff
- Effective management of workflow and firm resources
- Engagement realization and profitability
- Contribution to billing and collection performance
- Operational improvements and increased practice efficiency
- Achievement of individual performance objectives
- Achievement of established firm goals
- Overall contribution to the growth and financial performance of the practice
Eligibility after six months does not by itself guarantee a particular profit sharing payment. Profit sharing will be based on successful performance, achievement of applicable goals, firm performance, and the terms of the firm's profit sharing program.
Specific performance expectations and profit sharing terms will be communicated to the successful candidate.
Long Term Opportunity
This position is expected to become an important part of the firm's leadership structure.
The Director will work closely with firm leadership and, based on demonstrated performance, may assume increasing responsibility for client relationships, tax operations, professional staff, workflow, engagement profitability, and the overall performance of the tax practice.
The firm is seeking someone interested in helping lead and develop an established practice, rather than remaining solely in a traditional tax preparation or Tax Manager role.
To Apply
Qualified candidates should submit a résumé describing their:
- Public accounting experience
- CPA credentials
- Federal and California tax experience
- Tax preparation and review experience
- Staff management experience
- Client relationship responsibilities
- Engagement or practice management experience
- Russian and English proficiency
- Current Southern California location
Work Location: Hybrid remote in West Los Angeles, CA 90025