Big 4 U.S. Tax in HK Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi everyone,

I'm a recent JD graduate who has taken many tax classes in law school. Due to work visa issue, I'll need to move back to China/HK area to work. Does anyone have insight on which of the big 4 has a stronger US tax practice in HK, and which one does more advisory work than pure compliance?

Thank you so much if anyone can shed some light on this. I know this is kind of a rare question but don't know if there might be another forum where this question may be more appropriate.

[Anonymous User]

I can only speak to my Big4 but in my US tax advisory practice (here in the US), foreign offices commonly reach out to us for US tax questions and/or refer work to us if there are US tax issues related to their transaction. A US tax person sitting in a foreign office would be exceedingly rare if not entirely unheard of. But we do have a program that works in the reverse where a manager or director (someone with a decent amount of experience) from a foreign office will do a 1-2 year international tax rotation in a US office, usually NYC, which may present an opportunity to make connections and potentially transfer permanently at that time.

[Anonymous User]

I personally know a tax lawyer who relocated to HK had to switch to funds practice. But subsequently he did join a big 4 as a tax advisor. Not sure about his role and the prospect for US tax attorneys in HK.

As far as I know, few US firms' HK office have tax practice. I worked on a couple of deals in which the tax part was handled by big 4.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. It seems that KPMG, E&Y and PwC all have a small group of people specializing in U.S. tax. Most are CPAs,but there seems to be at least 1 or 2 JDs based on info available online. The online description says it's not all compliance work but I'm just wondering how true is that? Would it be a mistake to join with a legal but no accounting background? Thanks!

[Anonymous User]

Also interested in this.