Where to get experience?

Hi Guys,

I'm in a unique experience and hopefully you can shed some ideas for me. I work as a non profit auditor for the past 10 years so I'm very well versed in the non profit sector. From getting exemption, staying exemption, UBIT, PF, and employment tax laws. I passed the CPA recently and I want to basically start my own practice.

1) do you think I can make a living just targeting and getting exempt orgs? I understand the bread and butter are usually the 1040, 1120, and 1065. The problem with this is that I basically have no income tax preparation experiences. I wouldn't know how to help people in these sectors.

2) With point 1 in mind, I plan to maybe work for another CPA firm for maybe 2-3 years to get the income tax experience? What do you think is a good size firm for me to join? 5 people? 10 people? 50++?

I guess the practice I had in mind will probably be only tax and bookkeeping. I don't have any compilation, review, or financial audit experiences so I can't help people there.

Any comments would be hepful. Thank you.

With significant experience and your CPA, you could probably join a Big 4's exempt group and look at rotating through their other tax practice areas.

I think there's very few tax preparers who have expertise in the non-profit arena. If you live in a large enough city area in which you can draw new clients, I would think you could concentrate and succeed in this field of work.

I think there's very few tax preparers who have expertise in the non-profit arena. If you live in a large enough city area in which you can draw new clients, I would think you could concentrate and succeed in this field of work.

This. There are quite a few non-profits in my neck of the woods. I pass on all non-profit work because I have next to zero experience with NPOs and don't want to find the time to drive down the learning curve, but I imagine you'd do quite well in my area specializing in non-profit tax and networking with the right people.

It's area specific.

On the other hand, I think the problem with specializing that narrowly is that you make yourself vulnerable to disruption and change. If you wanted to get experience with 1040s, 1065s, 1120, 1120S, it might make sense to join a public tax firm for at least 2 years before you go out on your own. There's no teacher like experience.

Actually, I do dabble with Sec 528 (HOA clients) if that counts.