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Who: Louise
Position: Director, Tax, State Tax Consulting
Interesting clients: A well-known talk show host, a major league baseball player, and others.
Thoughts:
On a career in tax
"After law school I got a masters in tax, and then went to work for the Illinois Attorney General's Office. I became Associate General Counsel in charge of litigation for the Illinois Department of Revenue. So I am an Illinois state tax expert. I know income tax, sales tax, property tax, a little bit of everything."
On having a ballplayer as a client
"I answered some questions for a major league baseball player. There was litigation pending in the State of Illinois that dealt with athletes from other states having to source income to Illinois, even though they were not residents of the state. In fact, it was litigation that was pending when I was at the Illinois Department of Revenue, so it was pretty interesting to have it flow over to PwC."
On having a talk show host as a client
"We got a tour of the studio where the talk show is filmed. We had met with the host's tax director and when we finished, he said, 'Oh, have you ever seen a studio?' And we were like, 'Well, no, we're tax people. How would we ever see a studio?' And so he walked us through where they film the show. It actually looked much smaller than it does on TV."
On maintaining objectivity
"We work with various taxpayer organizations and give feedback on legislation. We may work with a task force, for instance, and give them comments on how we think certain litigation is good or bad. But we don't do a lot of that because it may be good for one client and bad for another. We try not to get caught in the middle."
On the windy city
"I think Chicago is a great city. It's not quite as hectic as New York. But I live right downtown too, so it is an easy walk to work for me."
On family
"I am married and have a daughter in college at Wesleyan in Connecticut. And a son who is a junior in high school. He's into snowboarding, so I tried it once and couldn't walk for two days. I was so sore. I won't do that again."
On PwC
"There are just so many different opportunities here, so much you can do. People think of it as just accounting, but we do non-profit and charitable work ... we have an incredible group of people."
On community service
"We do outings with our state tax consulting group. We have participated in Chicago Care, and as a group we went out one Saturday and painted a senior citizen housing unit. It was a lot of hard work, but it was fun. We also did a textbook drive for students in Kenya. There are a lot of caring people here at PwC. Very bright, intelligent people, always thinking outside the box."
On the importance of fresh ideas
"I was here just a couple of months when someone called from another office and asked me a question. I just gave one of the 'off the top of my head' answers, and they said, 'That will work, that will save our client probably a couple of million dollars.' And then I realized I was answering questions for a major auto maker."
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