Tax Manager - Trust & Estate

Distinct | North America; Illinois; Remote; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote work

Summer Fridays

Generous PTO

Flexible schedules

Remote working

Medical and dental coverage

401(k)

CPA/MST reimbursement

Job summary

Distinct in Illinois is seeking a fiduciary tax and wealth planning specialist to join our High Net Worth and family office group. You’ll review complex fiduciary returns, work with trusts and estates, and collaborate with estate and gift tax specialists to optimize structures and reduce future tax exposure.

You’ll have direct access to Partners, opportunity to become a key client contact, and a role blending advisory work with hands-on leadership.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of fiduciary tax and wealth planning experience in public accounting.
• Strong High Net Worth exposure and experience with 1041s and estate planning documents.
• Ability to discuss tax planning directly with clients, not just through a Partner.

Responsibilities

• Review complex fiduciary returns, trusts, and wills; participate in planning discussions.
• Collaborate with estate and gift tax specialists to optimize client structures.
• Mentor Seniors and Associates and develop technical thinking within the team.

Skills

Fiduciary tax expertise

Wealth planning

Client relationship

Team leadership

Education

CPA

JD

LLM in Taxation

Job description

You can specialize in Trust & Estate tax without signing yourself up for a huge firm, endless layers of management, and a calendar that seems to belong to somebody else.

That’s probably the biggest appeal here.

You’d be joining an established Illinois CPA firm of around 90 people, but specifically sitting within their High Net Worth and family office group. It’s a specialist team working with wealthy individuals and families across trusts, estates, foundations and wider wealth planning.

And they’re already set up for remote work.

Several people within the group work fully remotely, including senior members of the team. If you like going into an office, you can. If you don’t, you’re not going to suddenly discover three months in that “remote” actually meant Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and every other Thursday.

The work itself goes well beyond getting another 1041 out the door.

You’ll review complex fiduciary returns, work through trusts and wills, and get involved in the planning conversations behind them. You’ll work alongside estate and gift tax specialists to look at how clients can structure things more effectively, reduce future tax exposure, and make sensible decisions around their wealth.

You’ll also have direct access to the Partners leading this area.

That means you’re close to the decisions and close to the clients, with the opportunity to become a key contact for families yourself. If you enjoy the relationship side of tax and want more advisory exposure, there’s plenty of room for that here.

There’s also a team underneath you.

You’ll help develop Seniors and Associates, particularly around more technical areas, research, and how to actually think through an issue rather than simply follow what was done last year.

They’re looking for someone with around 5+ years of fiduciary tax and wealth planning experience in public accounting, ideally with strong High Net Worth exposure.

You’ll know your way around complex 1041s and estate planning documents, and you’ll have enough Trust & Estate experience to comfortably have conversations with clients rather than needing everything filtered through a Partner.

CPA, JD or LLM in Taxation is preferred.

Then there’s the lifestyle side of it.

• Summer Fridays.
• A proper Christmas and New Year shutdown.
• Generous PTO.
• Flexible schedules.
• Remote working.
• Medical and dental coverage, 401(k), annual bonus pool and CPA/MST reimbursement.

The firm has deliberately built flexibility into how people work because they want good people to stay. Fairly simple idea, really.

So if you enjoy Trust & Estate work but you’re starting to wonder whether doing interesting, complex tax has to come with a bigger firm and less control over your life, it doesn’t.

This might be worth a conversation.