Inside AICPA

Beresford wins AICPA’s highest honor…New chairman assumes leadership of tax executive committee…Rosen receives Dixon award…Three named to B&I Hall of Fame…AICPA’s BV/FLS site wins award…Institute student recruitment campaign honored…Four cited for BV/FLS achievements.

Institute Honors Beresford
The AICPA presented the Gold Medal for Distinguished Service—its highest award—to Dennis R. Beresford, CPA, Ernst & Young Executive Professor of Accounting at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, during the fall council meeting. Beresford was chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board from 1987 to 1997 and, before that, national director of accounting standards for Ernst & Young. He also was an elected at-large member of the AICPA council and served on many Institute committees, including the Accounting Standards Executive Committee, of which he was chairman.

Purcell Takes Tax Helm
Thomas J. Purcell III has been named chairman of the AICPA Tax Executive Committee. He is the first educator to lead the body, which on behalf of the Institute formulates tax policy, sets standards and represents members on tax matters being considered by Congress, the IRS, the Treasury Department and other public entities. The committee also oversees the work of the AICPA tax division, which comprises AICPA members who have a significant interest in taxation and many of whom serve on the tax division’s committees, technical resource panels and task forces.

During his two-year term Purcell will help tax policy makers create and administer a fair tax system, work to ensure that AICPA members follow the highest ethical standards of tax practice and assist them in being the preeminent professional providers of tax services. Purcell is an associate professor of accounting and professor of law at Creighton University in Omaha. Before joining the Creighton faculty in 1979, he was a tax consultant for Touche Ross & Co.

Rosen Wins Top Tax Award
At the AICPA National Conference on Federal Taxes held in Washington, D.C., Robert M. Rosen, CPA, received from Thomas J. Purcell III, CPA, chairman of the tax executive committee, the 2004 Arthur J. Dixon Memorial Award, the profession’s highest recognition for achievement in the area of taxation. Rosen is a retired partner of Ernst & Young, where—as a national director of tax education and also of quality control—he specialized in consolidated returns. His extensive record of AICPA service and leadership includes chairmanship of several tax-related committees and task forces and many years as co-editor of the Tax Clinic column in The Tax Adviser. The annual award honors CPAs for outstanding service to the tax profession and the AICPA tax division.

Three Enter B&I Hall of Fame
The AICPA and Ajilon Finance, which provides accounting and financial staffing services, inducted three members into the Institute’s Business & Industry Hall of Fame. Award winners are John H. Higgins, CPA/CITP, and Cynthia Cooper, CPA, CFE and certified information systems auditor (CISA); John Morrow, AICPA vice-president for new finance; award winner Jeffrey Zydeck, CPA; and William DeMario, Ajilon senior vice-president. The awards recognized the inductees’ insight and vision, understanding of their companies, leadership, commitment and strategic ability. Higgins for two decades has helped CPA firms use technology to improve their efficiency and boost profitability; Cooper—known widely for her exposure of fraud at WorldCom—established a consulting practice to advise companies on corporate governance and ethics; and Zydeck, as CFO of Peerless Steel, championed a Lifo to Fifo inventory-method conversion that saved the company millions of dollars in federal taxes.

AICPA’s BV/FLS Site Wins Accolade
The AICPA’s new online community (www.aicpa.org/BVFLS) for CPAs providing business valuation and forensic and litigation services (see “Highlights,” JofA, Nov.04, page 8) received WebCPA’s Web Star of the Week Award, which recognizes Internet-based resources of value to CPAs.

Institute’s Recruitment Program Gains Prize
The AICPA’s “Catch Me if You Can” forensic accounting contest and promotion, which is part of its five-year “Start Here. Go Places” student recruiting campaign (www.startheregoplaces.com), finished first among 330 competitors in the “Best Use of Direct Marketing” category of the Marketing Agencies Association Worldwide “Globes” Awards. The Institute’s campaign is helping boost university-level accounting program enrollment, which rose 17% between 2000 and 2003.

Four CPA/ABVs Earn Laurels
The Institute honored Thomas E. Hilton, Eva M. Lang, Harold G. Martin Jr. and Ronald L. Seigneur at its National Business Valuation Conference in Orlando for their contributions to the advancement of the business valuation (BV) discipline.

Hilton and Lang earned the 2004 AICPA Business Valuation Hall of Fame Award in recognition of their lifetime achievements and contributions. Hilton, a partner of CPA and consulting firm Anders Minkler & Diehl LLP in St. Louis, is a recent past chairman of the AICPA Business Valuation Committee and a member of the Business Valuation/Forensic and Litigation Services Executive Committee. Lang is chief operating officer of the Financial Consulting Group—a nationwide alliance of independently owned accounting, BV and financial services firms—and an expert in BV- and litigation-support-related electronic research.

Martin and Seigneur were named 2004 Business Valuation Volunteers of the Year for advancing the ABV credential and the business valuation profession for CPAs through their extraordinary service. Martin served on the AICPA Business Valuation Executive Committee and is editor of ABV eAlert and principal in charge of business valuation and litigation services at Keiter, Stephens, Hurst, Gary & Shreaves of Glen Allen, Virginia. Seigneur is chairman of the AICPA ABV Credential Committee and a principal in Seigneur Gustafson Knight LLP of Lakewood, Colorado.