For many of you who have been following my tax search expertise for years, you know that my background is in helping tax professionals and tax organizations be more successful. This is precisely why I built www.taxconnections.com… to continue to help tax professionals promote their tax expertise worldwide. Thousands of members from more than 100 countries are now utilizing TaxConnections to build tax brand identity, attract new clients, identify staff and consultants for their tax departments, and find a wide range of tax expertise around the world. I also know large tax organizations turnover at the rate of 25%-30% a year so tax executives leading tax organizations today must constantly be prepared for the inevitable changes.

The first change you can expect annually is turnover in your tax organization – change is natural in any business and changes come even faster today. It is never a good time to lose a great performer in your tax organization. However, people leave for many reasons including: 1) no upward growth potential in the organization (i.e. their boss is not going anywhere)  2) management and culture is not the right fit for them 3) there is one person in the tax organization who is just making everyone’s life miserable, you would be very surprised how much turnover one bad hire can create 4) parents want to spend more time with family 5) medical reasons ( i.e. having babies, ailing parents or disease) and many other unforeseen situations.

The second change to plan for is a change in executive management. Having kept track of all the CFO emails for many years, I am astounded at the turnover rate as they change companies. CFOs have a very tough job and when something goes wrong they often get blamed and move on; or they just decide to move on to a better situation. Either way, it is so surprising to those of us in the trenches to see many CFOs turn over so quickly and often within 2-3 years. A change in CFO in a corporate tax organization creates a lot of uncertainty for many corporate tax executives and tax teams. The question is how does the CFO perceive the tax organization? Do they look at tax as a profit center or a cost center? Every well-run company today recognizes their tax teams create tax savings for the organization.

The third change to plan for is a potential transaction of a merger or an acquisition. There is a great deal of merger and acquisition activity today unlike I have ever seen during my lifetime. If your company is active they are looking at deals all the time. What does that do for a tax organization? It makes everyone in the tax organization uncertain about their future. They are all thinking “How will this affect my current role in the organization? Will I have a job if the company goes through with this transaction? Will they even tell me what is happening? After thirty years working with tax organizations, I can tell you that some of you will have 2 week notice, some 2 months and some a bit more. This is the life of a corporate tax executives today. Here is my advice for you and I do hope you will listen. Get noticed for your tax expertise now! Do not wait for tomorrow when it comes to build an identity for your tax expertise. If you are in a corporate tax organization you are largely hidden behind the scenes and you must build a reputation for yourself online now. Tax professionals who start building brand identity online today will be leading tax organizations tomorrow.

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This is a continuation of a series of posts focused on Corporate Taxes. Click the links below to see the first 2 articles in the series.

1. Questions You Should Ask Of Everyone In Your Tax Department
2. How To Get The Tax Team You Need