Although we have been sharing this important discovery with our tax executive search clients, we realize it is important to share this with more CFOs, Head of Taxes, and Human Resource professionals who are searching for the very best tax professionals for their organizations. We stumbled upon this salary issue during numerous private conversations with tax executive leaders over the past several months. My thesis and main proposition are organizations advertising open tax jobs online are losing access to the top levels of the tax talent pool due to salary transparency laws and A.I.

After speaking to hundreds in the tax profession, we often hear tax executive candidates telling us the Head of Tax jobs posted had stated salary ranges that are lower than what they are currently making. Therefore, these tax executives had no desire to inquire any further about the tax opportunities we presented to them due to the low salary ranges the companies posted to comply with state salary transparency laws. The top performers in tax have no interest in looking at a new opportunity when the salaries they see posted do not meet salary expectations. We decided to investigate this trend and discovered the new and emerging state salary transparency laws are having a negative impact on a company’s access to a hidden and extraordinary talent pool that is no longer available to them.

We also discovered A.I. gathering salary data from job sites is making the situation even worse because it is leading to salary compression of the lead tax executives we work with constantly. We conducted a compensation study on a corporate Head of Tax to test our theory. Over a 12-week period during October, November, and December 2024, we reached out to over three thousand tax executives and asked for a private discussion with them about their annual compensation. The report that follows in this blog series will discuss the results of our three-month salary study. First, we want to provide you some background information on our Corporate Head of Tax Compensation Report.

The acquisition and retention of a technically skilled Head of Tax is an important asset for every corporation. Companies who hire skilled tax leaders with sophisticated technical tax expertise must also trust these employees with highly sensitive and confidential corporate financial information. The goal of this report on Head of Tax compensation is to ensure organizations have accurate and up-to-date data and information on compensating their Head of Tax. This information is intended to assist a corporation to attract and retain a highly skilled, technically sophisticated lead tax executive. The Head of Tax role is responsible for reducing a company’s overall financial risk and saving income revenue that would otherwise be lost forever to global, international, federal and state and local tax authorities. The Corporate Head of Tax Compensation Report is provided to ensure you have the information necessary to attract and retain a Head of Tax in your multinational organization. Learning about our research will help a company understand what competitors are paying a Head of Tax with the goal of reducing attrition of valuable human assets and maximizing corporate tax savings and profits.

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