“Taxes Are a Dirty Word,” but He Still Loves Them.

A Conversation with Dave Danic, Director of Tax Services at Summit Virtual CFO by Anders

Three little words, never uttered by anyone: Taxes are fun.

And yet, there he was in front of me, the Director of Tax Services at Summit Virtual CFO by Anders, speaking those words. With a straight face.

Then, to up the ante, when I asked him how he was feeling as we round the corner into the second half of tax season, he had this to say: “I’m feeling great.” Then, unprompted, he described feeling like a rockstar at work. Every. Single. Day.

Was it really true? Was it an elaborate prank? Can taxes be fun? Aren’t tax accountants miserable for at least two and a half months a year (if not more)? Has anyone ever used the term “rockstar” in the context of a tax CPA?

My co-host, Hannah Hood, and I had a lot of questions for a guy who loves taxes, starting from his vision for a celebrity spokesperson for the tax department. (He’s looking into a budget on Matt Damon if Ty Burrell is taken.)

How should a young CPA navigate their career path, especially as priorities shift? What can be done about the weak CPA pipeline? How do you achieve rockstar status at work?

Dave, Hannah, and I hashed out these questions–and more. Here’s what we discussed.

Find What Feeds You Emotionally (It Just Might be Tax)

At the end of the last year in school, a lot of accountants struggle with the question: audit or taxes.

What if you don’t know? Or what if you just go where the best job offer takes you? What if you pick wrong?

Even for someone like Dave, who knew he wanted to be an accountant for his entire life, there’s no straight path to finding your place in the accounting world.

As the son of a small business owner, Dave remembers being impressed by his dad’s tax CPA. “He helped my dad out through some problems, and I realized, ‘That guy's really helpful, he's not crawling on roofs in 30-degree temperatures, and he drives a pretty nice car.” Dave concluded: “He must have life figured out.”

When it came time to pick audit or tax, he picked audit, “And I picked wrong. I picked audit because I didn't know what tax meant. It's a dirty word. I thought, ‘Who likes taxes?’”

After he got his first job as an auditor at a pretty big CPA firm, he realized, “I was not very good at it and didn't really like it.”

A smaller firm gave him the chance to work closely with clients, where he realized that while it can be hard to convince them to look at their financials, they always want to know about their tax bill. That’s where Dave hit his stride, consulting with clients and valuing that relationship as the driving force of his work.

“It was just what started feeding me emotionally. It felt good to hear a client say, ‘Dave, thank you. This means a lot to me in terms of what you've helped me accomplish here.’ I started gravitating to more relationships that kept feeding that. To me, it just happened to be in tax. I loved explaining complex tax issues to someone who doesn't speak that language.”

“Audit or tax?” is really not the question any of us are answering.

Ask yourself: what emotionally resonates? If you're just moving widgets around on an Excel sheet, you're going to hate it. But if you're able to find something that gives you that joy, that makes a long-lasting career.

Econ 101: Supply, Demand and the Weak CPA Pipeline

The need for accountants is growing. The number of CPAs is shrinking. The pipeline problem is going to mean more competitive compensation for CPAs.

No one minds a pay bump, but the industry as a whole needs to face this shortage, understand it and take steps to make the profession more attractive.

One way to do that is to help young people understand: In accounting, there’s something for everyone, analytical and consultative types.

Then, within a single firm, it becomes the leadership’s responsibility to help employees experiment and find the right career path for them. That could mean trying out a different department – and even going back to your old department after a short stint in another area. That could also mean moving onto a different kind of company.

“Anders has such a wide swath of directions you can take from technology, to health care, to tax,” Dave points out. “We have a whole automation and technology department. We have to expose our team to these things that are rapidly changing the economy, first, to make sure that our firm is serving our clients the best way possible.”

“But second,” he adds, “as people, we have to expose our team to help make them the best, well-rounded professional that they can be.”

“If you want to stick around, awesome,” Dave says, “you’re going to be a perfect person to be a part of Anders. But if you do leave – and people do – you’re leaving with a good taste in your mouth.”

When to Ask for Help: Plumbing, Tax Returns, and Career Transitions

There’s so much pressure around making the right choice with a first job. Hannah, Dave, and I all felt that acutely in our own journeys. Along the way, we all experienced a need to pivot – more than once. But making that course correction can feel like a setback.

“I felt like a failure after auditing didn't work out. I got good grades in school, I was a good teammate on my sports teams, I had a great fraternity experience, I had good friends. Then this career kicked my butt for two years. I was like, ‘What is wrong with me? Is the rest of my life going to be like this?’”

To a young CPA who feels like they aren’t getting joy out of their career, Dave advises, “You can pivot. It's okay to move on.” It doesn’t always mean you have to leave your current firm: “Our firm pivots, our division is super good at letting people pivot if they're transparent enough to say what they’re thinking.”

That’s not always the easiest advice to follow, especially for a young CPA who might not yet feel comfortable with management. But management wants to help their team. Keep that in mind, and open up to your colleagues, Dave recommends: “It takes humility to say, ‘Hey, this might not be exactly what I want today, but can you help me?’”

That's the hardest question to ask for anyone, especially go-getter CPAs. “It is a super hard question to ask,” Dave says, “I have trouble with that every day. But once you ask that, there's a weight that comes off your shoulders. It can happen with your career, with your first tax return, and it can go even when you're fixing that plumbing problem in your kitchen.”

We all need a little bit of help. “And you know what?” Dave says, “People are there to help you out.”

Deathbed Wishes: A Flexible Workplace

As CPAs, we've worked hard to get that designation, and we should be proud. It becomes a part of our identity.

But then we have to ask: How do we integrate that into our lives? And, how do we shift that integration over the course of our career?

Dave experienced that challenge as his family was growing. “I had been working 80 hours a week, and I remember the managing partner saying I needed to give him 85. It physically wasn’t possible. I was driving 30 minutes each way. I would fall asleep mid-conversation when lying in bed with my wife.”

Once he took on a remote position at Summit, he found an immediate extra hour in his life by removing the commute. “I was able to find a flexible arrangement where I was having breakfast with my family,” Dave says. “When they got home from daycare or school, I was also there. I've saved like 60 days of my life of not sitting in the car and being with my family. That could be an entire year over the course of a career.”

“Imagine being on your deathbed, and the nurse says to you, ‘Would you like another year with your family?’ Dave says. “I think we all know the answer to that one.”

Now as the Director of the Tax department, Dave continues to try to bring that flexibility and autonomy to his team. “If you're clear with your expectations of what you want out of your career and we're clear with you on what you need to do to be successful in your job, then I think we're going to have a really fruitful relationship.”

“We know everyone's life is different, but because we have this element of flexibility we can make it work for everyone. We really encourage applications from people who are looking for a different option of what tax accounting can look like. There's going to be a level of consistency: you have your set clients you’re going to work with, year in and year out. You're not just thrown into random projects.”

Because of the way Summit operates under a subscription model, Summit’s tax team also gets to focus on high level strategy, rather than spending time on billing. There’s also no expectation of growing a book of business, because the sales department takes care of bringing in new clients.

There are going to be higher pressure times of the year, Dave acknowledges. That’s how it is with deadline work. But members of the tax department have even been known to take vacation. During tax season.

Feel like a Rockstar Every Day at Work

If you're a CPA, you've got the work ethic to get your technical skills up to where they need to be. Then, Dave says, “you just have to have a little bit of initiative to say, ‘Here's what I want to embrace.’ I have found that the people who find joy in their career are the ones who figured out what they wanted it to look like and then decided to create that path.”

“If you let the world just keep beating you over the head, telling you what you're supposed to do, you're probably going to be miserable. But if you start seeing where you find a little spark, dive into that and put in a little extra effort. If,” – like Dave – “you find that spark in providing client service and translating complex topics to clients, you're going to be a rockstar.”

“Some concerts are better than others,” Dave says, “but every day I come to work, and I feel like a rockstar. If that's what you want, here it is.”

To listen to the full podcast, catch it here: The Young CPA Success Show: If Taxes Aren’t Fun, You’re Doing it Wrong with Dave Danic on Apple Podcasts