About us
Taxes shouldn't be something clients white-knuckle through alone.
Lightening The Load is a tax preparation and advisory firm built on a simple idea, taxes shouldn't be something clients white-knuckle through alone once a year. We work as our clients' base camp: steady guidance, clear numbers, and a real relationship rather than a once-a-season transaction.
Our clients range from W-2 households with a side business to real estate investors, professional practices, and growing companies that lean on us for accounting and advisory year-round.
Open roles
Three ways onto the team.
01
Senior Tax Analyst
The technical engine room — complex returns, projections, and mid-year client questions.
Reports to Tax Manager
2+ years · EA or CPA
2+ years · EA or CPA
Read the full role →
02
Tax Manager
Own a book of relationships end to end — strategy, scoping, review, and advisory.
Reports to Firm Owner / Director of Tax
5+ years · Active CPA or EA
5+ years · Active CPA or EA
Read the full role →
03
Bookkeeper / Accountant
Own the monthly close for a portfolio of businesses — books clients can trust.
Reports to Tax Manager / Accounting Manager
3+ years · QuickBooks Online
3+ years · QuickBooks Online
Read the full role →
01 Senior Tax Analyst
Reports to
Tax Manager
Type
Full-time · Remote / Hybrid
The Role
This is the technical engine room of the firm. As a Senior Tax Analyst, you’ll prepare and review the returns that carry the most complexity in our book — multi-state, rental portfolios, K-1s, S-corps, partnerships, trusts — and you’ll be a first point of contact for clients who have a question mid-year, not just in April. You’ll work closely with a Tax Manager who owns the relationship, which means you get to spend your time on the actual tax work rather than chasing scope and invoices.
What you’ll own
- –Prepare and self-review individual and entity returns: 1040 (including Schedule C, E, and multi-state), 1120-S, 1065, and 1041, plus related informational filings such as FBAR/FinCEN 114 and 1099s
- –Build tax projections and planning scenarios that support client planning meetings — entity election analysis, estimated payment strategy, timing of income and deductions
- –Review work prepared by junior staff and give feedback that actually teaches, not just corrects
- –Serve as the day-to-day technical responder on our tax planning retainer — clients ask questions as they come up, and you answer them clearly and promptly
- –Handle IRS and state notices end to end: read the notice, diagnose the cause, draft the response, track it to resolution
- –Research technical positions and document conclusions so the file stands on its own if anyone looks at it two years from now
- –Keep engagements moving in our practice management system, with clean notes and honest status
What we’re looking for
- –2+ years preparing individual and business returns in a public accounting or tax firm
- –EA or CPA (or CPA candidate with parts passed) — we’ll support you through the rest
- –Real fluency in pass-through taxation: basis, distributions, reasonable compensation, K-1 mechanics
- –Comfort with rental real estate and multi-state allocation
- –Strong written communication — a lot of client contact here is in writing, and clarity matters more than polish
- –Someone who flags a problem early rather than hoping it resolves itself
Bonus points
- –Trust and estate returns (1041), cost segregation exposure, or international reporting
- –Experience in a firm running fixed-fee packages rather than pure hourly billing
- –QuickBooks Online or Xero literacy — enough to understand where the numbers came from
What success looks like
At 90 days: you’re preparing the majority of your assigned returns with minimal review notes and responding to retainer questions independently.
At one year: you’re the technical go-to on a defined book of clients, reviewing others’ work, and Managers trust your projections without rebuilding them.
02 Tax Manager
Reports to
Firm Owner / Director of Tax
Type
Full-time · Remote / Hybrid
The Role
Managers are the guides our clients climb with. You’ll own a book of relationships end to end — scoping the engagement, setting the strategy, running the planning meetings, and standing behind the technical work. For our top-tier clients, you’re the dedicated senior manager named in their agreement: the person they call before they make a decision, not after. You’ll also help shape how we price and staff work, which is where a lot of firm-level judgment lives.What you’ll own
- –Client relationships. Serve as the named advisor on a portfolio of personal and business clients, running annual, quarterly, or monthly review meetings depending on their service tier
- –Scoping and pricing. Run engagement meetings with prospects, assess complexity honestly, recommend the right service tier and any add-on scope, and build the proposal — including the margin sanity check before it goes out
- –Technical review. Final review on complex returns and projections; sign off on positions and own the judgment calls
- –Planning and advisory. Lead proactive planning conversations — entity structure, compensation strategy, real estate decisions, exit and succession questions — and translate them into concrete action items with deadlines
- –Team development. Supervise Senior Tax Analysts and staff, distribute work with realistic timelines, and coach through review notes rather than silently fixing things
- –Escalations. Handle the notices, exams, and client situations that need a steadier hand
- –Firm building. Contribute to process, templates, and standards so good work is repeatable rather than heroic
What we’re looking for
- –5+ years in tax, with at least 2 in a review or supervisory capacity
- –Active CPA or EA license
- –Demonstrated ownership of client relationships — you’ve been the person a client calls, not just the person who prepared the file
- –Genuine comfort with planning and advisory work, including talking about money and scope with clients directly
- –Judgment about when a situation is standard and when it needs to be escalated or researched properly
- –The ability to say “let me look into that and get back to you Thursday” — and then do it Thursday
Bonus points
- –Experience with fixed-fee or subscription pricing models and the scope discipline they require
- –Advisory work beyond compliance: KPI reporting, cash flow, cost segregation, M&A due diligence
- –Background building or improving firm workflow (TaxDome or comparable)
What success looks like
At 90 days: you’ve met your full book, know their situations, and are running meetings without a handoff safety net.
At one year: client retention on your book is strong, your team’s work reaches you cleaner than it did in month one, and you’ve identified real planning opportunities clients hadn’t been shown before.
03 Bookkeeper / Accountant
Reports to
Tax Manager / Accounting Manager
Type
Full-time / Part-time / Contract · Remote
The Role
Our accounting clients pay us for one thing above all: books they can trust. You’ll own the monthly close for a portfolio of small and mid-sized businesses — trades, professional practices, medical offices, retail — producing financials that are accurate enough to make decisions from and clean enough to file from. This role sits right between the client’s daily operations and the planning work our Managers do, and good work here makes everything downstream better.What you’ll own
- –Run the monthly close: categorize transactions, reconcile bank and credit card accounts, review the balance sheet line by line, and post accruals and adjusting entries
- –Produce monthly profit & loss statements and balance sheets, plus customized reporting for clients whose plan includes it
- –Maintain accurate fixed asset, loan, and equity schedules — the accounts that quietly break if nobody watches them
- –Record payroll entries and reconcile payroll liabilities against filings
- –Manage accounts payable and receivable support where a client’s plan includes it
- –Take on cleanup and catch-up engagements: diagnose what went wrong in a neglected file and rebuild it to a defensible starting point
- –Prepare year-end books for the tax team — tie out balances, document unusual items, and hand off a file that doesn’t generate twenty questions
- –Flag anomalies to the Manager early: margin swings, unexplained balances, cash flow that doesn’t look right
What we’re looking for
- –3+ years of full-cycle bookkeeping or staff accounting, ideally across multiple clients rather than a single company
- –Strong QuickBooks Online skills (Xero a plus) and genuine comfort in Excel or Google Sheets
- –Solid grasp of accrual accounting and month-end close mechanics — not just data entry
- –Accuracy and follow-through, especially on the recurring work nobody praises when it’s right
- –Professional, plain-language client communication — you’ll email clients directly for documents and clarifications
Bonus points
- –QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certification
- –Payroll processing experience
- –Familiarity with reporting or dashboard tools (Fathom, Double, or similar)
- –Industry depth in construction/trades, professional services, or medical practices
What success looks like
At 90 days: you’re closing your assigned clients on schedule with minimal review corrections.
At one year: your clients’ books close early and clean, tax season handoffs are uneventful, and Managers walk into review meetings trusting the numbers in front of them.
Ready to join the team?
Send a résumé and a short note about the work you want to be doing. We read every inquiry and reply either way.