BEWARE: Tax Executive Compensation Posted Online Is Understated

Posted on by Kat J

Although no tax executives are talking about it openly, I am going to educate you about tax executive compensation discussions that are happening privately. Corporate tax executives are talking about compensation behind the scenes and telling them the salaries posted are too low for them to come forward with interest in open tax jobs. This is creating a big problem attracting the top of the tax profession. Many tax executives are disinterested in the tax executive jobs posted online due to the tax job ads posting tax salary ranges which are lower than what they are currently being paid. It is an important issue to address and explain what is happening, so you have a better understanding of the matter. A.I. is simply scooping up compensation disinformation and feeding it into the market. A.I.is littered with A.I. errors.

As an example of proof, I took notice of an article posted on LinkedIn where Deloitte admits to A.I. errors. Deloitte must now issue a partial refund to the government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a report they paid for was littered with A.I. errors.  Using AI in gathering tax salary information is simply spreading salary disinformation. A.I. gathering tax salary information from job boards is garbage in and garbage out.

One of the most important aspects of my job is educating the CFOs who retain me to conduct a high-quality tax executive search is understanding tax executive compensation. If the CFO wants a diamond performer in the Head of Tax role, saving their company millions per year in tax savings, they should not offer them peanuts. We conducted a tax compensation study in the 4th quarter of 2024 and were stunned by the discrepancies in salaries, in fact as much as $250,000- $300,000 in base salaries and anywhere from 25% to 50% (a couple even more at 60% and 75%) as a paid bonus incentive.  It was done talking privately to software company tax executives primarily located in California in the 1B to 20B range. We know for a fact that companies with less than 1B annual revenue typically pay less to tax executives and are challenged to attract the top of the tax talent pool.

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Hiring A Head of Tax: Learn Why Multinationals Struggle To Hire Tax Leaders

Posted on by Kat J

As a highly experienced tax recruiter with over thirty-three years in the tax executive search profession, I have information to share if you want to know how to attract leaders in the tax profession. As many tax leadership roles unfold due to baby boomer retirements,  multinational corporations are increasingly losing access to the most technically sophisticated tax executives throughout the market. There is an elite pool of underground tax executive talent only accessible through a channel of trusted connectors. While people are distracted by the advances of AI, few people realize the negative impact AI is having on the ability to attract the hidden pool of talented tax professionals. This post addresses important factors affecting a search for a corporate tax executive today.

Understand my views are based upon thirty-three years’ experience communicating with highly educated leaders in the tax profession nationally and internationally. When you spend your professional life communicating  with tax executives with multinational corporations for decades, you learn how identify and reach the very best of the tax profession. They are now increasingly hidden and underground due to the need for greater  privacy. I have been fortunate to meet the most technically sophisticated tax executives around the world who are saving corporations millions, and in some cases billions, in tax dollars. There are CFOs who retain me to help build their tax team as a profit center; and there are CFOs who view their tax organization as a cost center. You learn there is a big difference in how a CFO treats their tax organization. You learn the most technically sophisticated tax executives want to report to the CFO; you learn tax executives want to report directly to the CFO. Companies who have the head of tax reporting to anyone other than the CFO will never be able to access the top tax executive talent. You learn when companies reorganize management and remove the tax executive from reporting to the CFO, they lose access to talented tax executives. There is higher turnover in a lead tax executive role when it does not report directly to the CFO. Most lead tax executives approached by recruiters on a search for Head of Tax will not even consider interviewing with the company if the role is not reporting to the CFO. This prevents extraordinary talent from even considering the lead tax executive role.

When you have a corporate CFO and lead tax executive working together as business partners, you have a corporation that increases income and value of the organization. Happy investors reap the benefits of a management team of a CFO and Head of Tax working together. These extraordinary teams are built. These top management teams do not happen by someone randomly walking in through a corporate resume portal. They do not randomly happen by a contractor recruiter with no deep network in the tax community.  Success happens when you retain an expert tax recruiter to actively pursue top tax talent for your organization. CFOs who retain an expert in tax recruitment will reap the reward working with an expert with a strong and proven tax executive network.

Proven and experienced tax recruiters communicate with technically sophisticated tax executives who understand how to legally use our tax laws to claw back millions and often billions in what would otherwise be corporate income lost forever to tax revenue authorities. Lead tax executives in multinational corporations are fending off tax revenue authorities at state and local, federal and international levels daily. Highly intelligent, technically sophisticated tax executives offer profit-making benefits to the companies who hire them.

Three Reasons Corporations Struggle To Hire A Tax Executive

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3 Secrets CFOs/CHROs Need To Know When Hiring A Lead Tax Executive

Posted on by Kat J
Tax Executive Compensation Study

3 Secrets CFOs/CHROs Need To Know When Hiring A Lead Tax Executive

With more than thirty years of experience, and a track record of more than one thousand tax executive searches successes by our tax executive search team, we have learned a lot about hiring and retaining a lead tax executive for a corporate tax organization. This article’s focus is to help CFOs increase their knowledge in how to attract and retain the best tax executives in the corporate tax profession.  Understanding this information will help you greatly in building  a tax team that saves your organization millions and in some cases billions of dollars in what would otherwise be revenue lost to tax revenue authorities forever. If you do not know this information, you will lose access to the best executives in the tax profession.

CFOS searching for a management level tax executive generally do not hear everything during their tax executive candidate interviews. With over three decades of experience speaking privately to hundreds of thousands of tax executives, we have learned what is important to them. An understanding and awareness of what a tax executive candidate is  thinking may not always come up during your interview with them. Yet it is vitally important for you to be aware of these thoughts in the selection of a lead tax executive(s) for your corporate tax organization. There is a lot of valuable information that a tax executive will share with a trusted tax recruiter, yet the potential employer is unaware of this information that is often unspoken during an interview. You will learn in this article what tax executives  may never tell a potential employer when considering a lead tax executive role within a corporate organization.

   What We Learned From 1000s Of Private Conversations With Lead Tax Executives

  1. Many highly qualified tax executive candidates will never submit their resume to a company job site portal. When you post a tax job on the job boards and interview candidates only from these sources, you remove yourself from the wider pool of technically sophisticated tax executives that may be available to interview with you throughout the tax community. The primary reason multinational corporations today are unable to access extraordinarily talented tax executives for their lead tax role is because these folks are happy, gainfully employed, and not actively looking at new tax opportunities. These gainfully employed tax executives are very busy actively clawing back tax dollars and savings their companies in the millions(billions). These tax leaders are working hand in hand with their corporate CFO to increase tax savings.

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