Tax Director

Benefits:

• IRA with company match
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Paid time off
• Vision insurance

About BW&O CPAs

Beebout, Williams & Olds CPAs is a growing, tech forward, and mission driven public accounting firm serving individuals and a range of businesses. We value innovation, team collaboration, and meaningful work.

We’re obsessed with:

• Delivering exceptional client service
• Building a team culture of critical and analytical thinking with a growth mindset
• Leveraging technology to work smarter and keep up with the rapidly changing industry

We’re at an inflection point: demand and opportunity are growing faster than our current tax leadership capacity. This Tax Director role is critical for continued firm growth.

The Role

The Tax Director leads our Tax Department end-to-end—people, process, quality, and client experience. You will own day-to-day leadership of the tax team (managers, seniors, and staff) to allow Principals to focus on growth, strategy, and high-value client relationships. This role will be the strong management layer between firm ownership and the team, with real authority and accountability for the department’s people, standards, and results.

If you like leading and building teams, standardizing processes, using technology, and providing technical expertise to clients and your team, you will be a great fit. This is a leadership role first: we need someone who thinks several steps ahead of where the firm is today, actively invests in learning and adopting new technology and AI tools, and is energized by building and developing a department—not just working through a task list.

Key Responsibilities

Lead the Tax Department

• Provide day-to-day leadership, coaching, and accountability for tax managers, seniors, and staff
• Set clear expectations around work quality, responsiveness, communication, and time management.
• Run regular check-ins, feedback loops, and performance conversations, address issues early and constructively.
• Serve as the primary management layer between the firm owner and the tax team—resolving day-to-day people and workflow issues.

Own Tax Engagement Delivery

• Oversee complex tax engagements from scoping through delivery for:
  • High-net-worth individuals
  • S corporations and partnerships/LLC
  • Closely held businesses
  • Trusts and estate
• Review complex returns and planning work, providing clear review notes that teach rather than just “fix.”
• Ensure deadlines are met and engagements are delivered with high quality and minimal surprises.

Drive Tax Planning & Technical Excellence

• Serve as a technical resource on complex issues (e.g., multi-entity structures, real estate and partnership taxation, retirement/DB/CB planning, PTET, fiduciary/estate work, etc.).
• Research and document firm positions on recurring or high-risk tax issues; create internal guidance and templates.
• Monitor relevant federal and state tax law changes and translate them into:
  • Internal education for the team
  • Proactive planning ideas for clients

Elevate Client Experience & Business Development

• Identify tax planning and advisory opportunities and collaborate with the principals to present and implement them.
• Participate in selected prospect meetings, planning sessions, and relationship‑building activities.
• Help refine and standardize the client onboarding and tax engagement experience.

Improve Process, Systems, and Use of Technology

• Work with firm leadership to refine and enforce tax workflows and standards
• Help the team use technology efficiently to drive consistency and productivity.
• Identify bottlenecks, propose solutions, and lead change in a way that brings people along, not just “mandates” it.
• Champion the adoption of AI and automation tools to increase capacity and quality
• Invest in your own ongoing technology education so you’re bringing new ideas to the team, not just keeping pace with them.

Be a Culture Carrier

• Model BW&O’s expectations around professionalism, critical thinking, communication, and exceptional client service
• Address performance issues that do not align with our values
• Help build a culture where people are supported and held accountable.

What Success Looks Like in 12–18 Months

• The tax team feels supported, challenged, and clear on expectations.
• Fewer “fire drills” are landing on the owners’ desks
• Tax deliverables are being completed ahead of key tax deadlines to help reduce the need for overtime hours and weekend word days during peak seasons.
• Managers and seniors are growing in responsibility and capability; not every complex issue is escalated to the owners by default.
• Key clients feel a strong relationship with you as well as the founding principals—and see the firm as proactive, organized, thoughtful, and focused on strategy and advisory.
• You have a meaningful voice at the leadership table and are contributing to firm-wide planning and process improvements.

Qualifications

Required

CPA license required and in good standing.

12+ years of recent tax experience at a CPA firm.

Demonstrated experience managing a tax department or team at a CPA firm (not just supervising individual preparers)—including direct responsibility for managers and seniors, their development, and their performance.

Experience partnering directly with firm owners or other executive‑level leadership—not just reporting up through layers of middle management.

Genuine enthusiasm for technology and process improvement—someone who has led (not just used) new software, automation, or AI adoption within a tax practice.

Strong technical skills and the ability to explain complex concepts in plain language to clients and team members.

Proven ability to manage multiple engagements, deadlines, and priorities without missing deliverables.

Comfort working in and improving cloud‑based practice environments.

Preferred

• Experience with one or more of:
  • Real estate and partnership tax structures
  • High‑net‑worth individual and family groups
  • Trusts and estates
  • Nonprofit/Exempt Organizations
  • Experience leveraging automation or AI tools to modernize tax workflows and reduce low‑value work.
• Prior experience in a small to mid‑sized firm where you’ve helped build or reshape a department.

Traits That Matter

• You genuinely like developing people, not just doing the work itself
• You are comfortable having direct, respectful conversations about performance and expectations.
• You balance big‑picture thinking with attention to detail.
• You are proactive: you see a problem, you bring a solution.
• You care about client experience as much as technical correctness.
• You’re excited by technology and AI as tools to elevate the practice, not threats to it, and you invest in your own learning to stay ahead of the curve.
• You think and act like an owner: you see around corners, help shape where the firm is headed, and are comfortable operating with real autonomy at the executive level.

How We Work & What We Offer

Full‑Time in‑office in El Dorado Hills, CA

Competitive base salary $200,000‑$260,000, plus performance‑based bonus.

Future eligibility for a profit‑sharing program based on firm and departmental performance.

Paid time off, holidays, and comprehensive benefits package including Healthcare, Dental, Vision, and IRA with employer match.

A seat at the table with firm leadership to help build the next stage of BW&O’s growth.