Loyalty Tax: Accounting’s Lose-Lose Incentive System | Big 4 Transparency
Employees lose stability and firms lose money. So why do we do it?
Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines
Dominic Piscopo
Jaimie Nichols: She Left Firm Life. Two Years Later, She Works Less Than 20 Hours a Week. | Big 4 Transparency
“I make more money now, but more importantly, I’m not miserable.”
This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines
Jaimie Nichols expected her accounting practice to grow faster. Two years after leaving firm life, she is glad it didn’t.
Nichols started the practice around the time she learned she was going to become a mother. Now, she tells host Dominic Piscopo on The Big 4 Transparency, she has earned more than she did at her former job while spending far more time with her young son.
“It was the best decision ever,” she says.
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Nichols reports $120,000 in revenue and roughly $10,000 in expenses for 2025. She says she worked fewer than 20 hours a week, even during tax season, and fewer than 10 hours a week outside it. Family members helped with childcare for several weeks during tax season, but she had no paid childcare that year. She estimates that saved her at least $35,000 in infant care costs.
The numbers are striking. Nichols is just as interested in what they leave room for. READ MORE →
Michael Hoover: Growth Without Discipline Comes at a Cost | Big 4 Transparency
Disciplined choices, talent investment, and cultural alignment matter more than chasing every opportunity.
This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines
As private equity reshapes the accounting profession, Bennett Thrasher is making a different kind of bet. The top 100 firm intends to remain independent.
Michael Hoover, Bennett Thrasher’s chief growth and strategy officer, joins host Dominic Piscopo on The Big 4 Transparency Podcast to explain why the firm considers independence central to its growth strategy—and why saying no may be one of the most important disciplines a growing firm can develop.
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“The biggest bet,” Hoover says, “is just remaining fiercely independent.”
That commitment shapes how Bennett Thrasher approaches everything from new service lines and acquisitions to recruiting and compensation. Rather than pursuing growth for its own sake, Hoover says the firm is working toward a long-term strategy for 2030 and scrutinizing whether each opportunity advances that vision.
In a market where firms are searching for new revenue streams, the temptation to pursue the latest “shiny object” can be powerful. But every new initiative consumes capital, leadership attention, and talent. Hoover argues that firms must examine not only an opportunity’s potential revenue, but also what they may have to postpone or abandon to pursue it.
Dominic Piscopo: Crowdsourced Salary Data Sparks Accounting Change | Accounting Conversations
Unpack how market gaps and transparency revise the recruiting game.
Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil |
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Accounting Conversations
With Chayton Farlee
Center for Accounting Transformation
In the latest episode of Accounting Conversations, host Chayton Farlee sits down with Dominic Piscopo, CPA, founder of The Big Four Transparency, to unpack compensation transparency and the accounting pipeline — two stubborn bottlenecks many firms still struggle to fix. The conversation centers on how accessible salary data and real-world experiences can illuminate a path toward fairer pay and clearer career ladders for accountants at all levels.
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Piscopo, a Canadian CPA now leading The Big Four Transparency, describes a career that reveals both the promise and the pain points of the industry. He starts in a Big Four firm in tax and quickly encounters a supportive leadership dynamic and a stellar coach, experiences that underscore what’s possible in a healthy culture. Yet even with that backdrop, he confronts a truth many early-career professionals feel but few talk about openly: compensation does not always align with effort or market realities, especially for younger staff trying to break in and prove their value.