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What's Your Job Like? Tax Professional, Deloitte

Published: Dec 03, 2014

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Ever wondered what life inside a major firm is like? Here, Deloitte's Heather Reiter--a New Jersey native--gives us a glimpse of her career to date, as well as her day-to-day life as Manager in Deloitte's Tax Management Consulting practice in Belgium.

 

Name: Heather Reiter 

Title: Manager, Tax Management Consulting

Location: Brussels, Belgium Office 

Company: Deloitte Tax LLP

 

Education

I’m originally from New Jersey but transferred to the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas (Austin) as a Junior. I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Accounting. During college, I interned every summer in the Information Systems Department of a global hoteling and franchising company, where I was first introduced to Finance Transformation projects, project management, and process improvement.

 

Explain your role within the Tax Management Consulting (TMC) practice

I recently celebrated my fifth year working in this practice. I focus on assisting clients in implementing indirect tax solutions across their enterprise resource planning systems (ERP), which helps them deliver their end-to-end tax compliance reporting. Furthermore, since joining Deloitte, I have worked on integrating tax engines and enabling indirect tax functionality across SAP platforms in the Oil & Gas, Retail, and Life Sciences industries. Right now, I am on an international assignment in Brussels, Belgium, where I serve a global, multi-national client by helping to deploy a tax-enabled ERP on SAP for more than 20 countries where the client has operations.

 

How has technology impacted how you deliver services to clients?

I did not really consider that technology would play such a prominent role in tax. However, ever since I joined Deloitte’s Tax practice, I heavily rely on technology to help me fulfill my day-to-day client service work. There is an expectation that, as a tax professional, you will continually keep abreast of technology product updates in order to then help deliver greater value for our clients. I count on Deloitte’s Global Tax Nerve Center®, which illustrates our capabilities regarding implementing, developing, vetting, and modeling integrated processes and software solutions in a virtual environment and on a global scale. I use the Center to get hands-on experience with new product releases and updates so that I can learn how to configure these tools for my clients in a testing environment. With these tools, I can then engage my client, bring technology into their processes, and demonstrate in a visual way how our cutting-edge technology and service capabilities can help them and their business requirements.

 

Why did you choose Deloitte for your career?

There are three reasons why I chose a career with Deloitte:

  1. The people. Deloitte was one of the only companies that recruited me where I immediately felt like I fit in. The people were welcoming and excited about the product and services they deliver to clients.
  2. The nature of the work. Having the ability to constantly learn and be challenged day in and day out was something that I valued highly when I was deciding where to work after college. Deloitte provides opportunities to work across multiple clients, industries, and business situations. This is something I have found very rewarding as it constantly challenges me to learn new supply chain flows, indirect tax requirements, and so much more. Additionally, being in a “consulting” role, I am constantly engaging with clients, making new connections and building my network.
  3. The international opportunities. Strategically, I chose Deloitte because of its international capabilities and flexibility around mobility.  

 

What’s been your biggest opportunity, and your biggest challenge, since joining Deloitte?

Working in another country has been one of my biggest opportunities and one of my biggest challenges. I have really enjoyed being on an overseas assignment, but it’s been challenging to acclimate myself to working in another country. The transition has been more difficult than I expected in terms of getting used to the environment and managing a global implementation where the entire team works remotely, but through the support of my global network I have been able to successfully exit the transition phase and have successfully delivered our project to the client. 

I also think that the biggest opportunity at Deloitte is that I am constantly being challenged. Every time I’ve gone to my partner and ask what else can I do to challenge myself, I’ve been able to get other experiences and work with different clients in different industries across the globe. For me, this is great because I thrive on a lot of variety in my work day. 

This post was sponsored by Deloitte LLP.

As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.


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