What Does a Certified Public Accountant Do?

In this section, we compare the average certified public accountant annual salary with that of a tax professional. Typically, tax professionals earn a $16,452 lower salary than certified public accountants earn annually.

While the salaries between these two careers can be different, they do share some of the same responsibilities. Employees in both certified public accountants and tax professionals positions are skilled in strong customer service, customer service, and irs.

There are some key differences in responsibilities as well. For example, a certified public accountant responsibilities require skills like "cpa," "payroll tax returns," "financial statement preparation," and "audit reports." Meanwhile a typical tax professional has skills in areas such as "taxable income," "audit support," "business growth," and "tax advice." This difference in skills reveals how truly different these two careers really are.

Tax professionals tend to make the most money in the government industry by averaging a salary of $73,335. In contrast, certified public accountants make the biggest average salary of $92,755 in the finance industry.

The education levels that tax professionals earn is a bit different than that of certified public accountants. In particular, tax professionals are 1.9% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a certified public accountant. Additionally, they're 0.4% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Now we're going to look at the tax associate profession. On average, tax associates earn a $14,227 lower salary than certified public accountants a year.

Not everything about these jobs is different. Take their skills, for example. Certified public accountants and tax associates both include similar skills like "cpa," "strong customer service," and "irs" on their resumes.

While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, several resumes showed us that certified public accountant responsibilities requires skills like "customer service," "payroll tax returns," "financial statement preparation," and "audit reports." But a tax associate might use skills, such as, "strong computer," "local tax returns," "tax compliance," and "tax regulations."

It's been discovered that tax associates earn lower salaries compared to certified public accountants, but we wanted to find out where tax associates earned the most pay. The answer? The finance industry. The average salary in the industry is $72,775. Additionally, certified public accountants earn the highest paychecks in the finance with an average salary of $92,755.

When it comes to the differences in education between the two professions, tax associates tend to reach similar levels of education than certified public accountants. In fact, they're 3.2% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.4% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

The tax analyst profession generally makes a lower amount of money when compared to the average salary of certified public accountants. The difference in salaries is tax analysts making $14,948 lower than certified public accountants.

While looking through the resumes of several certified public accountants and tax analysts we discovered that both professions have similar skills. These similarities include skills such as "customer service," "irs," and "state tax returns," but they differ when it comes to other required skills.

As mentioned, these two careers differ between other skills that are required for performing the work exceedingly well. For example, gathering from certified public accountants resumes, they are more likely to have skills like "cpa," "strong customer service," "payroll tax returns," and "financial statement preparation." But a tax analyst might have skills like "tax audits," "tax compliance," "tax payments," and "onesource."

Additionally, tax analysts earn a higher salary in the technology industry compared to other industries. In this industry, they receive an average salary of $79,702. Additionally, certified public accountants earn an average salary of $92,755 in the finance industry.

Tax analysts typically study at similar levels compared with certified public accountants. For example, they're 2.4% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.1% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

The fourth career we look at typically earns lower pay than certified public accountants. On average, tax consultants earn a difference of $9,956 lower per year.

While their salaries may vary, certified public accountants and tax consultants both use similar skills to perform their jobs. Resumes from both professions include skills like "cpa," "irs," and "state tax returns. "

While some skills are shared by these professions, there are some differences to note. "strong customer service," "customer service," "payroll tax returns," and "financial statement preparation" are skills that have shown up on certified public accountants resumes. Additionally, tax consultant uses skills like property tax, tax compliance, strong analytical, and payroll on their resumes.

Now, let's take a closer look at the financials in each career. The finance industry tends to pay more for tax consultants with an average of $73,553. While the highest certified public accountant annual salary comes from the finance industry.

In general, tax consultants reach similar levels of education when compared to certified public accountants resumes. Tax consultants are 4.6% more likely to earn their Master's Degree and 2.6% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.