It’s been a busy legislative session for the NYSSCPA. Now that the state budget has passed, lawmakers in Albany are beginning to make progress on several bills that could potentially impact the CPA profession in New York state.
Read more | May 8, 2013 3:07 PM
Freezing temperatures, icy roads and blustery snow usually correspond to the late-winter months of February and March. But at the NYSSCPA, that time of year also signals the beginning of the Society’s annual public tax panels, which are cosponsored by local newspapers and held across the state.
The awards, which were presented April 30 in New York City, recognize reporters from the national and local press whose work contributed to a better and more balanced understanding of business or financial topics. Winners were selected by a panel of judges from the NYSSCPA and the New York Financial Writers Association, who ranked submissions on accuracy, quality and thoroughness of research.
Read more | May 7, 2013 11:01 AM
NYSSCPA President Gail Kinsella extends her appreciation to Society volunteers who have so freely given their time to serve their fellow members during this busy year.
The NYSSCPA has voiced its disagreement with key partnership provisions included in a spate of rules the IRS is proposing for the new 3.8 percent Medicare tax on net investment income. In a comment letter published on Feb. 27, the Society stated that parts of the proposal were too complex, unfair to the taxpayer or beyond what the original statute demands. ...
Read more | May 6, 2013 3:10 PM
The NYSSCPA’s Technology Assurance Committee has chosen four young scholars from Canisius College and the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) as the winners of its annual student research paper contest.
Though the NYSSCPA agrees in principle with an International Audit and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) proposal that aims to make auditor reporting more transparent and improve users’ understanding of audited financial statements, it expressed concern that the plan goes too far in expanding the scope of auditor responsibilities. ...
Read more | May 6, 2013 11:40 AM
Homer St. Claire Pace was born on April 13, 1879, in Rehoboth, Ohio, though he would spend the most significant years of his young life in Michigan. According to Ellen Sowchek, Pace University’s archivist, the family had humble beginnings. Pace’s father, a Civil War veteran, held a number of different jobs, including a stint as the publisher of a newspaper in ...
Facing a subpoena can be a daunting situation, especially for a CPA firm, which may be uncertain about how to comply while still adhering to rules and regulations intended to protect client confidentiality. The following Q&A offer help in understanding the nature of subpoenas and how firms can minimize their professional liability exposures, should they ever have to respond to one.
Read more | April 5, 2013 1:51 PM
Twenty years ago, internal audit was seen as a back-office function, a more predictable and less thrilling specialty that CPAs considered when they grew tired of the stress of busy season or year-end audits, according to Anthony Chan, chair of the NYSSCPA’s Internal Audit Committee. But one accounting scandal and a major financial crisis later, the role an internal auditor plays has grown dramatically, as entities work to keep up with regulations, find systemic risks and refine their strategic focus.
Though a FASB proposal to update the accounting and disclosure requirements associated with repurchase/resale agreements, colloquially known as “repo” agreements, is a step in the right direction, some parts go further than they need to and may create a potentially significant third-party auditing issue, the NYSSCPA said in a comment letter released March 19.
Read more | April 5, 2013 12:15 PM
The last vestiges of a freeze that the IRS had instituted over certain examinations and collections activities in parts of the state affected by Superstorm Sandy were expected to be lifted April 1, agency personnel noted during a panel discussion hosted by the NYSSCPA’s Relations with the Internal Revenue Service Committee.
Unlike their colleagues at public firms, it’s common for those in private industry to find themselves the only CPA within an organization. This poses a number of unique challenges, not the least of which is having a much smaller pool of people to brainstorm with or use as a sounding board, according to Beth van Bladel, the corporate controller for the Albany design firm EYP Architecture & Engineering.
Read more | April 4, 2013 4:59 PM
For Cynthia Scarinci, one of this year’s recipients of the Dr. Emanuel Saxe Outstanding CPA in Education Award, the task of preparing students for the world of accounting stretches well beyond the classroom.
Ask Robert Kawa, one of two NYSSCPA members to be honored this year with the Society’s Dr. Emanuel Saxe Outstanding CPA in Education Award, what the best part about teaching is, and the answer comes easily. “It’s watching the next generation of financial professionals grow and develop before your very eyes,” he said. “Any teacher worth his salt will tell you this is the most satisfying aspect of the job. It’s why I’ve always taught.”
Read more | April 4, 2013 1:09 PM
In his more than 30 years of membership, Jeffrey Hoops, the winner of this year’s Distinguished Service Award, has held virtually every leadership position at every level within the NYSSCPA: he was president of the Society from 2003 to 2004, president of the FAE Board of Trustees in 2005 and president of the Nassau Chapter from 1988 to 1989. He has also chaired statewide committees and served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee.
Following a dedicated outreach effort by the NYSSCPA, last-minute language quietly added to the education portion of the New York state budget that sought the complete removal of a required annual internal audit function for public schools and Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) districts was removed before the budget was passed last month.
Read more | April 4, 2013 8:59 AM
The NYSSCPA’s Board of Directors voted unanimously on March 18 to approve a slate of proposed changes to its bylaws and to adopt the AICPA Code of Conduct to replace its own Code of Professional Conduct.
The NYSSCPA generally approves of the proposed changes to the AICPA’s Code of Professional Conduct that would make Interpretation 102-4, Subordination of Judgment by a Member, more relevant to those in public practice, but it raised concerns about the lack of definitions ...
Read more | March 13, 2013 11:45 AM
The day before Superstorm Sandy hit New York, Willie and Lisa Montalvo closed their Coney Island toy store Animation Odyssey a few minutes early and started moving the big-screen TVs, video game consoles, action figures and Pokémon card games to higher shelves.
The NYSSCPA’s Higher Education Committee has a new name: It officially became the Academic Advancement and Higher Education Committee, at the end of 2012. According to committee Chair Alexander K. Buchholz, the expanded name was chosen to better describe the committee’s overall mission, which, he said, is to provide a forum for the discussion of curricular and professional issues in accounting education and to make recommendations regarding these issues to the Society’s leadership.
Read more | March 12, 2013 2:36 PM
PAs in the media: building an active presence When John R. Lieberman was featured in a segment of “The Daily Show” last January, his second appearance on the program in the last few years, his sons “thought he was cool, for a couple of minutes.” But Lieberman, a New York City–based CPA, has long gotten kudos from colleagues for his ability to pop up just about anywhere ...
Mislabeling employees as independent contractors can have enormous financial repercussions for businesses, especially now that the IRS has taken a greater interest in how companies distinguish between the two, according to Avery E. Neumark, a member of the NYSSCPA’s Employee Benefits Committee.
Read more | March 12, 2013 1:54 PM
Social impact investing—investments made to create a positive social or environmental impact, beyond financial return for the investor—is becoming increasingly popular within the nonprofit sector, according to Diana Ayton-Shenker, founder and CEO of the consulting firm Global Momenta. She made her comments as part of a panel discussion about the trend during the FAE’s Family Office Conference on Feb. 5.
After several years of careful study and evaluation, the NYSSCPA has officially chosen a new location for its New York City headquarters.
Read more | March 12, 2013 11:38 AM
Many of the problems arising from CPA firm mergers and acquisitions can be traced back to insufficient due diligence, critical thinking, foresight and planning. The first step toward successfully combining firms should be to clarify and agree on the reasons for your own firm’s interest in a potential merger.
At its holiday dinner on Dec. 18, 2012, the Manhattan/Bronx Chapter Board of Directors presented Tatiana Veselova with the Theodore A. Wilson Inaugural Scholarship Award, on behalf of the administering scholarship committee of the NYSSCPA.
Read more | February 25, 2013 2:11 PM
Despite some encouraging signs, the pace of the country’s economic recovery in the wake of the 2008 recession continues to be frustratingly slow, according to Richard Peach, senior vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. New York City, however, has weathered the crisis better than analysts expected.
Though the American Taxpayer Relief Act (ATRA)—the last-minute agreement drafted between Congress and the White House to prevent the country from falling off the “fiscal cliff”—may have prevented a sharp shock to the budget and, consequently, the economy, it didn’t live up to its name ...
Read more | January 31, 2013 3:51 PM
In her most recent annual report, released on Jan. 9, IRS Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson said the intricacies of the tax code and the lack of budgetary resources to collect revenue, support taxpayers and launch initiatives are among the biggest hurdles facing the tax system today.
Efforts by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to address excessive disclosures may overly limit information and create requirements that would prove impractical and time-consuming for financial statement preparers, the NYSSCPA said in a recent comment letter to the accounting standards setter.
Read more | February 1, 2013 8:03 AM
In a decisive vote, the NYSSCPA Board of Directors supported the concept of non–CPA firm ownership during its quarterly meeting on December 4. The vote passed by a count of 29-1, with four members of the board abstaining. Society leaders have been reviewing the issue extensively over several years as part of ongoing discussions regarding potential legislative issues.
In a switch that reflects the changing nature of the CPA’s role in the employee benefits world, the NYSSCPA’s Employee Benefits Committee has moved from the Society’s Tax Division to the Accounting and Auditing Division, with the Society’s Board of Directors granting approval for the change during its Dec. 4 meeting.
Read more | January 11, 2013 3:10 PM
During the keynote address at the FAE’s Annual Tax/Plenary Conference on Dec. 11, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson said that her office’s soon-to-be released annual report will explore the United States’ unusually high tax compliance rate, as well as prevailing attitudes among those who don’t pay their taxes on time.
A Changing Landscape: I remember it well As we enter the new year and consider what 2013 has in store for the profession, it occurs to me how far we’ve come—and how very different the world was when I was graduating from college and starting my career as a CPA back in the early 1970s.
Read more | January 10, 2013 1:59 PM
For New York CPAs, the New Year typically means the start of another CPE year. But 2013 is unlike years past: last fall, after Hurricane Sandy swept through the region, the state’s Office of the Professions granted CPAs and other professional licensees who, because of the storm, had trouble meeting their 2012 requirements until Feb. 1 to complete their credits or reregister their licenses.
Though the federal government, as the result of regulations such as the Dodd-Frank Act and Basel III, is asking for additional data from financial institutions during the regulatory reporting process, there are several common misconceptions about some of its other requirements, according to federal officials who participated in a panel discussion on the regulatory environment at the FAE’s Banking Conference on Nov. 14.
Read more | January 9, 2013 1:52 PM
In a recently issued comment letter, the NYSSCPA recommended that the newly formed Private Company Council (PCC) take a user-oriented approach to decision making when it deliberates on whether and how to make modifications and exceptions to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) for nonpublic companies.
While well intentioned, a proposed set of auditing standards released by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) largely restates what preexisting auditing standards from other organizations had established long ago, the NYSSCPA said in a comment letter published on Dec. 3.
Read more | January 7, 2013 3:42 PM
The NYSSCPA agreed, for the most part, with an AICPA exposure draft that would revise the definition of “practice of public accounting” and “professional services,” and would eliminate the term “holding out.” All of this would be done in order to expand the scope of the AICPA’s ethics rules to encompass those who, while members of the institute, may not yet be CPAs, or if in public practice or business choose not to hold out as CPAs. However, the Society did suggest wording changes that would hold even more members accountable.
The department is going to be updating its regulation of the tax preparer profession, and everyone should keep an eye out for the proposed new rules in 2013. That was the message from Jamie Woodward, executive deputy commissioner of the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, who spoke at the Dec. 5. NYSSCPA/FAE New York State Taxation Conference.
Read more | January 7, 2013 2:48 p.m.
The CPA Roundtable is a monthly Chapter Newsletters feature where we ask CPAs from around the state to weigh in with their thoughts on an issue 
When I assumed the NYSSCPA presidency a year ago, I shared thefollowing quote by acclaimed cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead in my address: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
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In February, C. Ian Anderson was named the New York Regional Associate Director for the PCAOB, a newly created role in which he will lead the board’s enforcement efforts in that office.
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New York CPAs already know that staying up-to-date on the state laws and regulations that govern certified public accounting is not only crucial, it’s time-consuming and often challenging.
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