Overview
This role rebuilds the organization’s tax function around a small, senior in-house team supported by a deliberate mix of external capacity. The position owns tax positions across a complex fund platform spanning REITs, RICs, TRSs, C corporations, partnerships, and a Qualified Opportunity Fund across real estate, private credit, and venture strategies. Work is expected to be judgment-heavy from day one.
Reporting to the CFO and serving on the finance leadership team, this build role involves designing the split between in-house execution and external support, ensuring compliance quality, and maintaining strong review controls.
Responsibilities
- Own tax positions and associated risk
- Take and document technical tax positions (principally in the REITs and the RICs) to an audit-defensible standard.
- Size exposure so the CFO, portfolio management, and executive team can weigh it.
- Escalate issues that genuinely warrant an outside opinion and decide the rest.
- Design and run the delivery model
- Determine and manage what stays in-house vs. what goes to outside advisors, offshore or onshore providers, or the fund administrator.
- Scope engagements, negotiate fees, set service levels, and own the tax vendor budget.
- Build review controls that allow sign-off on work not personally performed.
- Ensure compliance across the platform
- REIT and RIC qualification: asset and income testing, prohibited transaction analysis, earnings and profits, and distribution requirements.
- Federal and state filings for Forms 1120-REIT, 1120-RIC, 1120, and 1065, including filing calendars, extension strategy, and nexus determinations.
- Deliver ASC 740 provisions on the SEC reporting calendar.
- Own investor tax reporting controls
- Validate and post investor 1099s calculated by internally built software.
- Own review controls around externally prepared K-1s.
- Partner with Investor Relations on investor-facing tax content and questions.
- Support transactions and structuring
- Work with real estate and venture teams on acquisition and disposition structures.
- Review transaction documents and build internal relationships so tax is involved while terms are set.
- Build resilience of the function
- Document positions, methodologies, and recurring processes to prevent concentration of critical judgment and institutional knowledge.
- Automate where it reduces manual effort, including AI-enabled workflow.
- Lead and manage the team model
- Develop and maintain a small group of senior in-house professionals to a high standard.
- Manage external partners with the same rigor.
Requirements
- 10+ years of tax experience, with genuine technical depth in REIT taxation (required).
- Experience with partnership, TRS, RIC/’40 Act, and Qualified Opportunity Fund exposure is valuable.
- Demonstrated ability to defend positions to auditors, regulators, or during examinations, with strong documentation discipline.
- Direct experience delivering through outside advisors, offshore delivery centers, or fund administrators, with the ability to review work critically.
- Track record of making calls: form a view, state it plainly, and own the outcome.
- Ability to drive outcomes through Finance, Legal, Real Estate, Venture, and Engineering partners without direct authority.
- Fluency translating complex tax matters for non-tax audiences, including executives, auditors, the board, and investors.
- Comfort working in a small, fast-moving, largely remote organization where answers may not yet be documented.
- Preference for CPA, JD/LLM, or equivalent designation.
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
Preferred Qualifications
- Demonstrated belief in a social mission.
Compensation & Benefits
- $190,000 - $230,000 a year
- Remote-first work environment (must live in the United States)
- Competitive medical, dental, and vision insurance, with employer contributions to both employee and dependent premiums
- Flexible Spending Accounts for medical expenses, dependent care, and parking
- 401(k) with 3% contributed by the organization, regardless of whether you are actively contributing
- Fully covered life insurance and short-term disability
- Significant equity via an employee stock grant program
- Gympass benefit including mental health resources
- Flexible PTO
- Employee Assistance Program
- Paid parental leave
Location
Remote-first work environment (must live in the United States).