The CPA Journal

May

GUEST EDITORIAL

Carrying the Briefcase: Why Did I Become a Cpa?

When people ask how long I’ve been practicing accounting, I tell them 22 years. I’m only 29 years old, so they usually look puzzled. But when you’ve been around the profession as long as I have, I don’t feel that I’m stretching the facts.

Ever since the age of seven, I’ve been accompanying my father, Stewart Buxbaum, when he visits clients or the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. I have carried his briefcase to and from those meetings, and listening in on those discussions is what first sparked my interest in accounting.

I started my formal education in accounting in high school with Introduction to Accounting (debits and credits). The teacher did a good job with the curriculum, but the class was a bore. Fortunately, the exposure to the “real” profession that I got listening to my father allowed me to see past the boredom in the classroom. After high school, I continued my studies in accounting and business and earned my bachelor’s degree from Cornell University. After graduation, I focused on passing the CPA exam, working, and completing my master’s in taxation from Pace University.

Since completing my formal education, I’ve realized that there’s no substitute in this profession for on-the-job training. No coursework could have taught me what I need to know in order to handle a sales tax audit or refund matter, to understand the technical aspects of assessing a client’s risk, to apply the sales tax law to a transaction, and to evaluate audit methodology. All of the technical aspects are important but they can’t substitute for the primary skill, which is the art of negotiation.
I also enjoy the results-oriented nature of a job, which makes success a personal challenge. Because a client’s sole concern is always the final outcome of the audit or review, we share a common bond.

Fortunately, whenever a problem is particularly challenging, I also have the advantage of being able to ask my father all sorts of questions late at night and early in the morning—an enormous supplement to my on-the-job training. Today, when my father and I visit clients or the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, I still carry his briefcase in one hand, and in the other hand I carry my own.

Now that I’ve been a CPA for five years, I’ve become more involved with our profession. I’m an active member of the AICPA, the NYSSCPA Leadership Academy, and the NYSSCPA New York State, Municipal, and Local Tax Committee. I learn a lot from the several conferences the committee organizes each year, including the Sales Tax Conference, the Small Business Tax Conference, and the Annual Tax Conference. I’m a strong supporter of the NYSSCPA because it has a significant voice in the future of our profession. I dedicate another significant portion of my professional time to www.nysalestax.com, a website that provides information on sales and use tax and related issues. But as much as I think technology is a terrific tool for the accounting profession, I hope I never stop carrying a briefcase—either mine or my father’s.

Michael Buxbaum, MS (Tax), CPA, S. Buxbaum & Company P.C.

Navigating the Crossroads

Editor’s Note: Since last year’s July issue, we’ve been sharing this space with your responses to the question, “If you could do it over again, would you still become an accountant?” The stories we’ve heard should end the stereotype of accountants as humorless number-crunchers.

Some of the writers that have occupied this space in the past year have gravitated toward accounting from an early age. For some, family has been a significant influence; for others, it has been a teacher or a friend. We’ve heard from CPAs for whom accounting is their second—even third—career, as they learn more about themselves and revisit the career choices they made as young adults. To describe the routes some people took on their way to accounting as circuitous would be an understatement. Many contributors, when pausing to look back, have expressed frank amazement at where they find themselves and how much they enjoy it.

We encounter crossroads at various points in our lives, and often we don’t recognize them as such until much further down the road. We often need time to assimilate what we learn as we make choices along the way. If you would like to share your own lessons with us—what you think someone new to accounting should know (including what they should ignore) or what questions they should ask—send it to us here at The CPA Journal (cpaj@nysscpa.org).

The CPA Journal is broadly recognized as an outstanding, technical-refereed publication aimed at public practitioners, management, educators, and other accounting professionals. It is edited by CPAs for CPAs. Our goal is to provide CPAs and other accounting professionals with the information and news to enable them to be successful accountants, managers, and executives in today's practice environments.

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