---
title: "Tax Examiner and Collector, and Revenue Agent"
description: "Determine tax liability or collect taxes from individuals or business firms according to prescribed laws and regulations."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/tax-examiner-and-collector-and-revenue-agent"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Tax Examiner and Collector, and Revenue Agent

**Category:** Business and Financial Operations · **SOC code:** 13-2081 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 13-2081.00

Determine tax liability or collect taxes from individuals or business firms according to prescribed laws and regulations.

Also advertised as: City Tax Auditor; Collections Specialist; Revenue Agent; Revenue Collector; Revenue Officer; Revenue Specialist; Tax Collector; Tax Compliance Officer.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $62,370 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $29.98/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $42,000 to $114,550, with the middle half between $49,450 and $83,390
- **Total US employment:** 56,610
- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's
- **Preparation required:** Some preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** -1.0% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 4,400 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 18/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 56,610 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $42,000 |
| 25th | $49,450 |
| 50th (median) | $62,370 |
| 75th | $83,390 |
| 90th | $114,550 |
| Mean (average) | $70,520 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| NJ | $96,420 | $88,617 | 1,430 |
| AK | $94,630 | $92,449 | 60 |
| AZ | $92,680 | $92,057 | 230 |
| CT | $89,140 | $86,034 | 940 |
| KS | $88,610 | $98,381 | 50 |
| IL | $80,720 | $80,754 | 1,350 |
| MN | $79,000 | $80,105 | 1,150 |
| OH | $76,240 | $82,178 | 990 |
| MA | $75,560 | $71,447 | 1,260 |
| NV | $75,500 | $75,516 | 280 |
| CA | $74,110 | $66,935 | 8,610 |
| DE | $72,900 | $73,040 | 110 |
| WA | $72,850 | $68,076 | 770 |
| NY | $72,610 | $67,281 | 3,550 |
| ND | $72,230 | $81,195 | 60 |

36 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 51 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/tax-examiner-and-collector-and-revenue-agent/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/tax-examiner-and-collector-and-revenue-agent.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 60,100 in the 2025–2035 base year to 59,500 by the end of the cycle — a loss of 600 jobs, or -1.0%. Declining: -1.0% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 4,400 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** Bachelor's degree (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Some preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| Bachelor's Degree | 33.6% |
| Associate's Degree or other 2-year degree | 25.6% |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 23.2% |
| Some College Courses | 13.7% |
| Master's Degree | 3.7% |
| First Professional Degree | 0.2% |

## What the work involves

- Notify taxpayers of any overpayment or underpayment, and either issue a refund or request further payment.
- Maintain records for each case, including contacts, telephone numbers, and actions taken.
- Contact taxpayers by mail or telephone to address discrepancies and to request supporting documentation.
- Send notices to taxpayers when accounts are delinquent.
- Answer questions from taxpayers and assist them in completing tax forms.
- Confer with taxpayers or their representatives to discuss the issues, laws, and regulations involved in returns, and to resolve problems with returns.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Reading Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 2.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Law and Government — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Economics and Accounting — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Inductive Reasoning — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Information Ordering — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Conventional (C), Enterprising (E), Social (S).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| C — Conventional | 6.85 |
| E — Enterprising | 4.38 |
| S — Social | 3.15 |
| I — Investigative | 2.47 |
| R — Realistic | 1.21 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 81.1 |
| ESFJ | 79.1 |
| ISFJ | 74.1 |
| ISTJ | 70.1 |
| ENTJ | 61.7 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ, ESFJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Tax Preparer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/tax-preparer) — median $54,920
- [Accountant](https://nuecareer.com/careers/accountant) — median $83,680
- [Bill and Account Collector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bill-and-account-collector) — median $47,030
- [Credit Authorizer, Checker, and Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/credit-authorizer-checker-and-clerk) — median $50,080
- [Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/bookkeeping-accounting-and-auditing-clerk) — median $50,670
- [Eligibility Interviewer, Government Programs](https://nuecareer.com/careers/eligibility-interviewer-government-programs) — median $54,210
- [Billing and Posting Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/billing-and-posting-clerk) — median $48,500
- [Payroll and Timekeeping Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/payroll-and-timekeeping-clerk) — median $58,260
- [Financial Examiner](https://nuecareer.com/careers/financial-examiner) — median $94,160
- [Budget Analyst](https://nuecareer.com/careers/budget-analyst) — median $91,640

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2025–2035 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/tax-examiner-and-collector-and-revenue-agent