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BDO Gets SALTy with Latest Acquisition

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

BDO today announced an expansion of its state and local tax practice (SALT) through the addition of 1 partner and 10 employees formerly with HoganTaylor, LLP.  Tom Smith, who will be joining BDO as a partner, will serve as the SALT Practice Leader for the firm's Southwest region.  These new resources – effective July 1 – will be based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma, but service clients throughout the country. 

BDO is thrilled to welcome Tom and his staff to BDO for the sake of SALT. “In his capacity with HoganTaylor, a member of the BDO Alliance, we have worked with Tom and his team a great deal over the years.  This will make their transition into BDO USA a seamless process," said Rocky Cummings, National SALT Practice Leader at BDO USA.

Tom is just as thrilled, saying he was "extremely pleased" to be joining BDO. "Our growing client base of healthcare, energy, cloud computing and other businesses dealing with multistate tax issues fits nicely with BDO's industry and client focus. Our clients will also benefit from the resources of BDO's extensive global network," he said.

Tom Smith has more than 20 years of experience specializing in state and local taxation. Working with a team of attorneys and former state auditors, he has helped clients in various industries recover millions of dollars in overpaid taxes, while ensuring they remain in compliance with all state and local tax laws.  Prior to joining HoganTaylor in 2010 to head the firm's SALT practice, Tom worked with several Big Four accounting firms, including a nine-year tenure with KPMG where he led the indirect tax practice for the firm's Dallas business unit.  A graduate of Northeastern Oklahoma State University, Tom Smith is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Oklahoma Society of Certified Public Accountants.

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Future Family Man Is Going Back and Forth Between BDO and Big 4 Offers

Welcome to the Calebs-are-a-loyal-sort edition of Accounting Career Emergencies. In today’s edition, a non-tradish student is getting all wishy-washy about choosing between BDO and a Big 4 firm. There are lots of variables involved so we’ll get right to it. But first…

Is your busy season belt already busting? Need help choosing classes to reach the 150 credit hours required in your state? Worried your lack of WASPyness will hurt your career ambitions? Email us at [email protected] and we can recommend an exercise regimen or a nice fine arts class. Skin color and religion, on the other hand, are above our pay grade.

Back to our decider du jour:

I work in industry accounting now as a college student and I dread the monotonous work of industry accounting. This has brought me to the conclusion that I may just enjoy public accounting more in regards to a long term career. I see my CFO, controller, and director all working crazy hours which leads me to believe that my decision between public and industry would not change my work hours enough to really affect my work/life balance.

Unlike the majority of college students in their 20s I have significant financial obligations including a mortgage, car payments, and everything else that comes with those expenses. I am also married (no kids) and my wife is a low paid professional in her industry (marginal income, just enough to get by, but not enough to carry the house hold alone).

As for my offers – I have received a full-time offer with BDO to begin in the last quarter of this year, and I have also received an internship offer with a Big 4 to begin in January 2012 (hopefully beginning full time towards the end of 2012/beginning of 2013). If I take the internship for the sake of going Big 4, I will have to take out extra student loans through my masters to subsidize my ramen noodle living in the period between the internship and full-time start date. I will also have to put off starting my family, which is a big deal for me and my wife since we would like to start that before she gets into her 30s (which would be next year).

I must say that I originally chose the Big 4 and called BDO to decline my offer and let them know what my choice was. They seemed disappointed to hear it and the partner told me he doesn’t usually take part in recruitment and would really like me on his team. This is when he pushed my original offer from Jan 2013 to begin a few months earlier if I would have liked.

Also, when I inquired about the benefits offered at the Big 4 I was perceived “pushy” and I was told that I should be grateful for being extended an opportunity with them that many students would do anything for. When I presented this issue to professionals at other firms as well as professors I was always reassured that my question and my choice of approach regarding benefits was completely valid and the firm overreacted.

I am not sure if going Big 4 will be worth the financial and family delay sacrifice, or if going BDO and foregoing the Big 4 prestige would be a better idea since I have a partner already favoring me there from the get go, and instead of incurring more financial liabilities (through the extra student loans I would need if I took the Big 4 internship) I would be able to start paying some off. Some advice to help me make my decision would be greatly appreciated!

Hopeful Future Partner

Dear Hopeful,

Since we received your note prior to our pithy warning on Friday, I’ll ignore your verbosity. AS FOR THE REST OF YOU, there’s something to be said for brevity – keep that in mind.

All right, then. You’ve got Big 4 vs second tier decision to make, the typical American debt load and a biological clock to consider. Christ, man. We won’t touch the latter two but will say: aside from drinking heavily, you really need to sit down with the Mrs. to figure a lot of this out.

As for your career problem, we’re a little confused. It seems like you’ve already turned down BDO and accepted the Big 4 offer but there must be get out of accounting firm jail free card that we’re not aware of. Put that aside and it sounds like BDO is bending over backwards for you and your Big 4 friends are a tad touchy about a pretty standard inquiry (but maybe you’ve got people skills like Dunstan Pedropillai). So if you’re back to making a decision between the two, going with BDO seems like your best move just based on the people you’ve encountered.

To address this situation a more general sense, do you honestly think “Big 4 prestige” is going to help your situation? Anyone – recruiter, partner, manager, staff – that tries to guilt trip you with “[you] should be grateful for being extended an opportunity with [us] that many students would do anything for” doesn’t give a damn about you and is more concerned about the power they hold over you with this “opportunity.” Tell them to stick it and get your career started. Your wife will appreciate it.