Disclosures: May/June 2018

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE VIRGINIA SOCIETY OF CPAs

MAY/JUNE 2018

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MAKE ALL THE RIGHT MOVES AS A STRATEGIC CFO ALSO...

Data analysis education | Tax reform and the QBI deduction

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contents

MAKE THE RIGHT MOVES AS A STRATEGIC CFO page 18

Most CEOs favor CFOs who are strategic rather than tactical.

Here’s where to put your energy.

Features 24

Get the Last Laugh in Retirement with the QBI Deduction Use the tax overhaul so you and your clients can utilize a qualified retirement plan to get a QBI deduction.

30

Colleges Dive Into Big Data Education Virginia colleges and universities are beginning to offer data analytics course to meet the demands of employers.

Columns

Departments

10

Advocacy

4

President’s Perspective

Session updates

6

Line Items

Virginia Taxation

8

Tech Talk

34

Leadership

35

VSCPA News

38

Classifieds

12

Sales tax updates 16

Young Professionals Build your résumé

CONNECT: connect.vscpa.com

FACEBOOK: facebook.com/VSCPA

TWITTER: @VSCPANews, @FinancialFit

INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/VSCPA

LINKEDIN: tinyurl.com/VSCPALinkedInGroup

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president’s perspective 4309 Cox Road Glen Allen, VA 23060 (800) 733-8272 vscpa.com

disclosures disclosures.vscpa.com disclosures@vscpa.com MAY/JUNE 2018 Volume 31, No. 3

Where VSCPA2025 stands in 2018

M

ay 1 marks the first anniversary of the launch of our VSCPA2025 strategic framework, aimed at helping our members navigate a period of exponential change. I wanted to provide an update on where we stand in implementing our new mission — empower our members to thrive — and our four bold strategies:

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Managing Editor Jill Edmonds disclosures@vscpa.com Contributing Editor Chip Knighton cknighton@vscpa.com Public Affairs & Communications Director David Bass dbass@vscpa.com Editorial Task Force Olaf Barthelmai, CPA Adam Chaikin, CPA Cheri David, CPA Genevieve Hancock Alesia Lewis, CPA Harold Martin Jr., CPA David Peters, CPA Mark Plostock, CPA Barbara Sukramani, CPA Disclosures is published six times a year by the Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants (VSCPA). The magazine’s mission is to communicate information of value to VSCPA members, including professional issues and VSCPA initiatives. The materials and information in Disclosures are offered as material only and not as practice, financial, accounting, legal or other professional advice. Statements of fact and opinion are made by the authors alone and do not imply an opinion on the part of VSCPA officers, members or editorial staff. Publication of an advertisement in Disclosures does not constitute a VSCPA endorsement of the product or service.

Copyright © 2018 Virginia Society of CPAs.

VSCPA Preferred Providers

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Create a culture of learning Drive innovation and vision Influence students to become CPAs Advocate for members’ interests

The 2025 rollout, starting with the 2017 Leaders’ Summit in Williamsburg, went beautifully. We had tremendous buy-in from our members, with lots of excitement and affirmation that we were on the right track. We polled numerous groups of members and got feedback that we hit the right things. We’ve gotten positive feedback from staff and our colleagues in CPA societies across the country. While we’re eager to hear from more members, we feel like we found the proper priorities and are building and preparing to launch forward-looking initiatives based on our research.

A key initiative this year is a big push to drive CPA relevancy through innovation, with a focus on technology and talent.

We’ll be launching a Center of Innovation where members will learn about resources, information, peer recommendations, and provide benchmarking and other tools that will increase innovation in your organization. It will also provide resources on growing leadership skills and competencies in yourself and your staff.

Another key initiative for 2018 is our youth outreach program, called CPAs in the Classroom. Members all over Virginia will be armed with presentation materials about CPA career information targeted to younger students in middle and high schools. Our goal will be to reach hundreds of young students this year and teach them about the exciting opportunities in pursuing accounting as a career.

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In addition to launching new programs, VSCPA2025 marks a cultural shift for the Society. We need to do some things differently. We need to be more agile, nimble and technology-focused in order to be more responsive to member needs.

It will take a shift in the way we approach our jobs, and members, leaders and staff may need to learn to see things differently.

Our programs, services and structures may need to change, and we will need to be open to evolving in new ways.

One aspect that will not change is that success will require a tremendous amount of member engagement. Whether you’re helping us determine the direction of the Center of Innovation and Leadership, speaking to students, or engaging with legislators, your involvement is a crucial ingredient in achieving our vision.

The message here is success of VSCPA2025 depends on you — your voice, your engagement in new programs, and your openness to making changes in your organization. Your first step is to know what’s happening. Visit vscpa. com/2025 to learn more and to let us know what you think. We will only succeed and reach 2025 together. n

Stephanie Peters, CAE, has served as VSCPA president and CEO since 2007. speters@vscpa.com @StephPeters connect.vscpa.com/StephaniePeters

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2018Renewal

It’s Time to Renew!

Annual renewal is due by May 31, 2018 Online: vscpa.com/Renew Phone: (800) 733-8272 Benefits: vscpa.com/Benefits

Thank You for being a member!

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line items

Virginia wins when it helps preserve history

56 The percentage of Virginians with college loan debt (average $29,296).

16 million

A new study from Preservation Virginia and the Home The Taylor Hotel in Winchester was rehabilitated using Builders Association, rehabilitation tax credits. The once blighted building was once a conducted by Baker Tilly, Confederate command post and housed wounded soldiers. looked at the economic impact of 21 historic preservation projects in 2014 and discovered that those projects generated $467 million in economic output, support 9,960 jobs and generated $3.50 for every $1 invested through the first three years.

Check out the robust study results at preservationvirginia.org.

And another report has similar findings, showing that the tax credits are worth it to the state. The L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University analyzed the overall impact of Virginia’s rehabilitation tax credits from 1997 through 2017, revealing that $1.2 billion in credits were issued to leverage $4.5 billion in private investment. While it takes the state nine years to recoup its tax credits, projects continue to generate economic output after the payback period.

Check out the 94-page report at tinyurl.com/WilderRTCStudy.

Highlights from the IRS Data Book The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released its 2017 IRS Data Book in March, showing agency activities for the fiscal year. You will find info about tax returns, refunds, examinations and appeals, illustrated with charts showing changes in IRS enforcement activities, taxpayer assistance levels, tax-exempt activities, legal support workload and a ton more. The IRS collected more than $3.4 trillion and processed more than 245 million tax returns and other forms. Find the full Data Book at irs.gov.

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83 The percentage increase in Virginia college tuition over the last 10 years ($12,820).

The Commonwealth is rich in history, and the Historic Preservation Tax Credit allows taxpayers who rehabilitate historic properties to take dollar-for-dollar reductions in income tax liability. The Virginia credit is 25 percent of eligible rehabilitation expenses (larger than the 20 percent federal credit).

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The approximate number of unused vacation days per year by Virginians.

59 The percentage of Virginia workers with unused vacation days.

12,312 The number of VSCPA members in good standing as of April 1.

614 The number of VSCPA members who are currently college students.

$36,757 Average amount of debt in 2016 in families where the head of the household is age 75 or older, up from $30,288 in 2010.

41 Percentage of homeowners age 65 or older who have mortgage debt

5 Virginia’s ranking on WalletHub’s list of states’ taxpayer return on investment for taxpayers.

line items

Listen in to ‘VSCPA Leading Forward’ VSCPA podcast tackles leadership, innovation, technology and more.

Looking for insights on leadership and innovation? Fire up your phones, because the VSCPA has something new to liven up your commute.

VSCPA Leading Forward is a new podcast featuring VSCPA Chief Operating Officer Maureen Dingus, CAE, and a rotating group of guests. Maureen and her guests discuss topics related to leadership, innovation, corporate culture and technology.

Our first guest is a great one: Kimberly Ellison-Taylor, CPA, who spoke with us on her last day as chairman of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) Board of Directors. Kimberly discussed her rise to her current position as global accounting strategy director at Oracle and how CPAs can help spread the message of the profession to the CPAs of tomorrow.

Visit vscpa.com/LeadingForward to listen or download VSCPA Leading Forward, or subscribe on iTunes. If you like the podcast, we’d appreciate a review to help others find it. Thanks for listening!

…AND A FEW OTHERS After finishing the VSCPA podcast, here are others to keep you company: 1. Accounting Today Podcast 2. NPR’s Planet Money 3. HBR Ideacast 4. TEDTalks Business 5. Each of the Big 4 has a podcast: Deloitte UserFriendly, PwC CFO Direct, KPMG Business Insights, EY CIO Insights

NEW! SINGLE RENEWAL DATE FOR VIRGINIA CPA LICENSES The VSCPA filed emergency legislation on behalf of the Virginia Board of Accountancy (VBOA) in the 2018 Virginia General Assembly session to give the VBOA authority to implement a single renewal date for licensees. Therefore, effective Feb. 26, 2018, the VBOA began transitioning all license renewal dates to June 30. While this will make remembering the date much easier, it will still be critical to timely renew to avoid having to apply for reinstatement if even one day late. See page 10 for more information on the General Assembly session.

RENEWAL DATE

It’s time to renew your VSCPA membership! Visit

EXPIRATION DATE

March – June 2018

June 30, 2019

July 18 – March 2019

June 30, 2019 (fee prorated*)

April 2019 on

June 30 of the subsequent year

vscpa.com/Renew today; the deadline is May 31.

*Fee will only be prorated for 2019.

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tech talk

EXCELLENT EXCEL

Customizable ‘Quick Access Toolbar’

The next frontier for hackers: Your phone Malware on mobile devices is the next big threat for consumers.

A report from Trend Micro assessed top mobile threats: • Mobile ransomware jumped 415 percent in 2017.

• More apps and operating system features on phones make them more vulnerable to security gaps.

• Criminals are targeting mobile banking apps.

• Fake apps are more prolific, appearing in Google Play for download by anyone.

Visit trendmicro.com for more information, and make sure you’ve enabled security features on all your mobile devices.

I was in a meeting attempting to quickly access various commands on different tabs on the toolbar ribbon, when a fellow CPA showed me how to customize my “Quick Access Toolbar” so that we could all save some time. The Quick Access Toolbar sits in one of two locations. By default, it sits at the very top left corner on the same line opposite of the minimize, maximize/restore and close buttons. Or if you want it closer to your working area, you can change its settings so it shows below the ribbon of the other toolbars. To change its location, click on the down arrow in the Quick Access Toolbar to access its options. To add a command to your “Quick Access Toolbar,” right-click on the command you want to add and then click Add to Quick Access Toolbar or through its options menu under its down arrow.

Consider adding the commands you use the most to your Quick Access Toolbar so they will be quickly accessible regardless of which toolbar tab is visible or if the toolbar ribbon is collapsed all together. For example, if you are in the habit of always running spell check, you can right-click the “Spelling” button under the Review tab and click Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

If you do this, you should see a small button with ABC and a checkmark on your Quick Access Toolbar. If you like it in Excel, you can also set-up other Quick Access Toolbars in Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc.

George D. Strudgeon, CPA, CGFM, is an audit director at the Virginia Auditor of Public Accounts in Richmond. Email him if you have Excel topics you want him to cover.

BY THE NUMBERS

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george.strudgeon@gmail.com connect.vscpa.com/GeorgeStrudgeon

The percentage of Americans who admit to risky cybersecurity practices, according to a 2017 Netsparker survey.

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Visit vscpa.com/PAC

HELP KEEP OUR VOICES HEARD This past year, many officials from the House of Delegates whom we’ve built strong relationships with over the past several years did not return to the General Assembly. This means we will need to increase our efforts to forge new relationships with legislators. VSCPA PAC contributions are a key part of this effort.

Whether you make a $50 or $100 contribution, every dollar helps build strong ties with legislators and keeps important issues at the forefront of this evolving political environment. Contribute online at vscpa.com/PAC.

advocacy

Session ends, session begins

T

he 2018 Virginia General Assembly session is over — for now. While most of Virginia’s (and the VSCPA’s) legislative priorities have been dealt with, there are two large issues looming on the horizon: The budget and tax reform. Those topics should necessitate two special sessions to determine how Virginia will spend its money the next two years and how it will incorporate the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into its tax code.

The budget session is already underway, having started April 11. This session didn’t necessitate as much direct input from the VSCPA as the tax reform session, which will occur later in the year, but we’ll continue to keep you updated on key developments through our Session Watch e-newsletter.

With that covered, here’s how things went for the VSCPA during the regular legislative session.

TAX CONFORMITY Tax conformity proved more complicated than usual because of the aforementioned Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, as well as tax extenders included in federal budget legislation passed in February. The General Assembly delayed much of the discussion until the special

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session but did focus on items dealing with the 2017 tax year, conforming to those provisions with the exception of the decrease in the medical deduction floor. That floor remains at 10 percent for state returns despite the drop to 7.5 percent for federal returns.

While the VBOA did get conformity legislation (HB 154/SB 230) passed, the conformity discussion will ramp back up later in the year when the tax reform special session convenes. We’ll have further updates for you then.

CPA LICENSURE There were two bills introduced at the VSCPA’s request with the goal of simplifying the CPA licensing process in Virginia, and both bills passed. The first bill (HB 752/SB 428), which went into effect with Gov. Ralph Northam’s signature Feb. 26, moves the Virginia Board of Accountancy (VBOA) one step closer to a uniform license renewal date of June 30.

All Virginia CPA licenses will have an expiration date of June 30 effective that date in 2019. Until then, renewal breaks down as follows:

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advocacy

• Licenses renewed, issued or reinstated Feb. 26–June 30, 2018, will expire June 30, 2019, at the normal applicable fee.

• Licenses renewed, issued or reinstated July 2018– March 2019 will expire June 30, 2019, with renewal fees prorated by month, but the full fee amount applicable for new licenses and reinstatement.

• Licenses renewed, issued or reinstated April–June 2019 will expire June 30, 2020, at the normal applicable fee.

Moving forward, all renewals will be handled between April and June. Initial applications and reinstatements will be handled as they are received. (See page 7 for a chart of these dates.)

The VSCPA’s other bill (HB 753/SB 279), which passed and was signed into law, allows the VBOA to lower fees as an exempt action. Any fee increases will still have to go through the full regulatory process.

TAX ISSUES Without taking a position, the VSCPA consulted on two bills that affect preparers of Virginia income tax returns, both of which passed. HB 788 requires the use of a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) on state tax returns, but does not expand the scope of who is required to get a PTIN. Meanwhile, HB 183 and SB 271 require tax preparers to inform the Virginia Department of Taxation (TAX) of any data breach affecting Virginia taxpayers. The VSCPA worked with TAX to ensure the scope of the requirement was appropriate and did not conflict with U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rules.

TAX REFORM No tax reform legislation passed during the regular session, but three bills were sent to the Joint Subcommittee on Tax Preferences for further study: • HB 966, which included a sales tax on professional and personal services as introduced. The patron agreed to amend the bill to exclude most professional services, including accounting, but the amendment was not formally introduced since the bill went to study.

• HB 1444, which would have allowed taxpayers selecting the standard deduction on federal returns to itemize on state returns • SB 390, which included a tax on personal services, but not professional services

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REGULATORY REFORM HB 883/SB 20, which passed, create a pilot program to help reduce regulatory requirements, requiring the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation and the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services to reduce regulatory requirements by 25 percent over the next three years. Failure to accomplish that 25 percent reduction would trigger an analysis of whether Virginia should adopt the “2 for 1” model, in which every new regulatory requirement would require the repeal of at least two existing requirements. If successful, the program could be expanded to other state agencies, including the VBOA.

HEALTH INSURANCE The VSCPA supported SB 672, an insurance-related bill with the potential for great positive impact for the VSCPA’s sole proprietors.

With the passage of this bill, they and the self-employed are now eligible to participate in the small-group health insurance market, allowing for significant savings on insurance plans. Look for future communications from the VSCPA about how sole proprietors can get into those markets.

SPOILATION OF EVIDENCE The VSCPA opposed HB 1336, which, as introduced, would have allowed judges to instruct juries that destruction of records, whether intentional or not, should be interpreted to mean that the records would have been detrimental to the party who destroyed them. The VSCPA and other parties argued that such a significant policy change should have only come after extensive study and input from stakeholders. The bill was sent back to committee before passing the Senate, essentially killing it for the year.

WE NEED YOUR HELP One of the main planks of the VSCPA’s advocacy strategy, part of the VSCPA2025 strategic framework, is building relationships with legislators and regulators. That became even more crucial with the 2017 elections, which saw a wave of 19 freshman legislators voted into the House of Delegates.

We’re launching an outreach plan aimed at connecting with these legislators through events in their own districts, with the goal of meeting with one-third of the freshman legislators by the beginning of the 2019 session. This is a volunteer opportunity for any members interested in helping with the VSCPA’s advocacy efforts. Contact VSCPA Vice President, Advocacy Emily Walker, CAE, at ewalker@vscpa.com or visit vscpa.com/Volunteer for more information. n

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virginia taxation

Sales tax: The rules may be changing Updates to sales and use taxes, tax credits and more.

S

tates historically have required sellers with a physical presence in the state to collect and report the tax due on taxable sales. A physical presence is created by a storefront, warehouse or other location, through assets held or inventory stored, or through employees or other representatives working in a specific state. Sellers without a physical presence generally have been able to escape tax collection requirements but that may be about to change.

On April 17, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court was scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case of South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc., in which the physical presence requirements will be reexamined. South Dakota passed legislation in 2016 which that requires remote sellers with sales of $100,000 or 200 separate transactions in the state, thereby with an “economic

Terry Barrett, CPA

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presence” but no physical presence, to collect and remit South Dakota sales tax. The law contained provisions to fast-track the issue into court and to preclude the enforcement of the tax collection provisions until the legal issue is decided. Rulings by the South Dakota Sixth Judicial Circuit Court and the South Dakota Supreme Court in favor of remote sellers and in support of the physical presence requirements previously established by the U.S. Supreme Court have paved the way for the current case. A ruling is expected by the Supreme Court in late June.

Many believe this reexamination of the physical presence limitations is long overdue. The sales and purchasing practices of the world have changed dramatically in recent years, so why haven’t the tax rules kept up? Back in 1992, the U.S. Supreme

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virginia taxation

Court ruled in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota that a seller must have some physical presence (office, inventory, people, etc.) in a state to have sufficient “nexus” or connection with the state to require the collection of sales/use tax. With its decision, the Court recognized that the traditional means of selling were changing.

Quill was a mail-order office supply store selling supplies to customers in various states. However, the Court also recognized the administrative challenges of requiring out-of-state sellers to comply with the myriad of state and local tax rates and regulations if there were no physical presence rules, and thus agreed with physical presence standards previously established in its decision in the National Bellas Hess v. Department of Revenue ruling in 1967. The Court suggested Congress may be a better forum for crafting a sales tax collection standards.

Over time, Congress has considered legislation that would impose sales/use tax collection requirements on remote sellers. That legislation has been met with debate and has gone nowhere. Some of the concern has been over federal intervention in states’ rights, placing administrative burdens on small sellers, and generally how to make it all work given over more than 10,000 sales and use tax jurisdictions nationwide. Meanwhile, online sales have grown substantially. Online sales in the United States in 2015 were $349.25 billion, grew by 14.4 percent to $399.53 billion in 2016 and are expected to grow to close to $530 billion in 2018, according to a 2017 report by the Centre for Retail Research.

While some online sellers collect sales tax —– Amazon collects sales tax on all of its taxable sales in the states that impose sales tax —– many remote sellers do not. For example, many thirdparty sellers through Amazon and other online marketplaces do not, and will not, collect the tax, unless forced to comply with tax collection and requirements.

Given the popularity of online sales, many traditional brick-andmortar stores have seen their sales decline. Many have been forced to close or have ventured into the highly competitive online market scene. State and local jurisdictions faced with a shrinking traditional base of sales tax revenues have sought different (and sometimes creative) ways to enforce compliance generally in keeping with the physical presence requirements. These include “click-through,” affiliate nexus and marketplace nexus provisions.

• “Click-through” nexus provisions require an out-of-state seller with an in-state representative who receives a commission for facilitating sales for the out-of-state seller to be subject to tax collection requirements due to its relationship with the instate representative. The instate sales generally must be above a certain threshold, i.e., $10,000, during the preceding year.

Twenty-two states have such laws.

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• Affiliate nexus is created if an out-of-state seller’s parent or affiliate has a physical presence in the state. The specifics of these affiliate nexus laws vary widely by state and often the affiliate provisions are combined with “click-through” provisions. The affiliate nexus rules were enacted when a number of brick-and-mortar stores created separate legal entities to sell online (to avoid the collection of the tax) and the states wanted assurance they could capture the tax on online sales. Twenty-five states have affiliate nexus provisions.

• More recently, there have been efforts by the states to impose sales tax collection requirements on marketplace facilitators.

These laws essentially require a marketplace facilitator that has a physical presence in the state to collect sales tax on all sales made through its marketplace, regardless of whether the third-party sellers have nexus. Washington State, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania have enacted such legislation.

The overall focus is on the physical connection between the seller and the state and the sellers’ tax collection requirements. Some states have directed their attention not so much on the seller collecting the tax but rather on the purchaser paying the tax. All sales tax states require in-state purchasers, whether individuals or businesses, to self-assess and report use tax on taxable purchases where the seller does not collect the tax. Eleven states have passed legislation creating notice and reporting requirements for remote sellers. These laws generally require remote sellers with no physical presence in the state to provide certain types of notices on their websites and invoices to in-state customers purchasing from them. The notices are to advise the in-state purchasers that the sellers are not collecting sales tax and that use tax may be due on the purchases. The sellers may also be required to provide yearend reports to the in-state customers and to the taxing jurisdictions about the customers’ purchases. Penalties are imposed for failing to comply with the notice requirements. Even without the notice requirements some states are asking (demanding?) that sellers provide information regarding in-state purchases.

Massachusetts has taken a slightly different approach to requiring remote sellers to collect the tax in the state. Massachusetts passed a regulation that requires remote sellers to collect the tax if apps or cookies from their websites are “downloaded” on customer devices in the state. Such apps/cookies are deemed to be software and the state includes within its definition of tangible personal property subject to the tax software regardless of how delivered to the customer — in tangible or electronic format. Ohio has adopted a similar approach. u

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virginia taxation

O Several states, like South Dakota, have passed economic nexus legislation or adopted regulations or directives in preparation for the challenge to the physical presence requirements of Quill.

Alabama, Indiana, Maine and Tennessee, among others, stand ready to enforce their laws with a decision by the Supreme Court in favor of South Dakota and economic nexus. Generally these provisions call for the collection of sales tax if sales to in-state customers exceed a certain threshold (e.g., $100,000) or a certain volume (e.g., 200).

Virginia has not adopted some of the more aggressive physical or economic presence tests but did enact legislation in 2017 that required any dealer owning inventory for sale in the state to register for collection of the sales tax. This was to clarify that having inventory stored in a third party’s warehouse or fulfillment center in-state constituted sufficient nexus with the state to create a tax collection and reporting requirement. Like other states, Virginia has been limited by the Quill decision in pursuing collection

of sales or use tax by out of state sellers without some physical connection with the state; however, this could change depending upon the Wayfair decision.

The fact that the Supreme Court is hearing the Wayfair case is significant. Regardless of the ruling, whether in favor of economic nexus or holding fast to the physical presence standard, will be significant for all players — the states, consumers and remote and in-state sellers. Stay tuned! n

Terry Barrett, CPA, is a tax senior manager at Keiter in Glen Allen. She focuses on state and local tax consulting, with a special interest in and emphasis on sales and use tax in the multistate arena. tbarrett@keitercpa.com (804) 273-6254

connect.vscpa.com/TerryBarrett keitercpa.com

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Attention CPAs:

Whether A Decision Maker Looking To Upgrade Your Talent, Or A CPA Looking to Upgrade Yourself/Your Skills, Ask Yourself: Who really chose who in joining your company?

Are you/your professional staff really at the right level where you should be/you need them to be?

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Why leave your future to chance?

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Contingency & Retained Staffing Solutions

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young professionals

Build a killer résumé Highlight leadership experience to take your career to the next level.

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ou’ve gotten your first job, and you’re ready to take your career up a notch. But how do you build your résumé to reflect your abilities and also your strengths? What will set you apart?

Emphasize your leadership experience to snag the position of your dreams.

COVER YOUR BASICS You already know that clear verbal, presentation and written communication are important leadership skills.

Make sure you convey superb communication skills on your résumé by articulating job responsibilities using verbiage well known in the industry and demonstrating strategic understanding. Proper editing,

Genevieve Hancock

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section organization and formatting also show beginning leadership capabilities. In addition, make sure your résumé has been clearly reviewed.

Including mentor programs is also a strong way to showcase your coaching and leadership capabilities and take that next step in leadership. Many programs, such as the VSCPA’s MentorMatch program, pair you with a mentee even at entry-level positions so you can learn about others’ experiences in an industry, company or field of finance or accounting. After gaining a mentor, take the next step by volunteering for a committee position inside or outside of your company. Invest your spare time and energy into something you are passionate about improving, be

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young professionals

This column, from the VSCPA Young Professionals Advisory Council (YPAC), covers relevant subjects requested by young professionals in the workforce.

it community involvement, emotional intelligence or teaching classes in an area you are an expert in.

Those oft-asked questions during interviews: “What would you say is your biggest weakness?” and “Tell us about a time when you failed and how you handled it,” can have a great impact on the outcome of an interview. Every single person interviewing has failed at some point in their career. How you handle a not-sopositive situation and how you control your reaction shows what type of team player you can be. It is important to prepare complete answers to these questions and include specific details outlining how you accept responsibility and maturely handle fallout.

This is also an opportunity to show your emotional intelligence capabilities by including empathy of the effect on mistakes and weaknesses have on others.

Adding a section for professional development or work above and beyond your employment position, such as boards you sit on and volunteer positions you have taken, can help set your résumé apart from the rest when applying to a role with leadership skill requirements. Most positions above entry level have a leadership component in influencing or leading others. Quantify these positions on your résumé with a measurable effect, whether that is an increase in man hours and efficiency or a total number of dollars.

SHOW YOUR INFLUENCE Managing up and managing down require many of the same characteristics, such as communication, development of others, passion around education or knowledge and demonstration of emotional intelligence. These skills all have a time and place in both delegating tasks and conveying understanding to executives and management. Ensure you develop your communication skills so you can adequately communicate your impact on the quantity or quality of a project.

Showing that you are able to accept feedback from partners, employees and your supervisors can also demonstrate a flexible growth mindset. What works for one individual may not work for another from a communication or learning approach. Just as one individual in an information technology position may not understand all of the acronyms in public accounting, someone in an industry accounting executive position may not speak the same

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language as a dedicated accounts payable staff member. Identify these differences and make sure that you can speak the same language in order to influence your audience.

PROMOTE LEADERSHIP ABILITY When applying for any role, leadership skills can set your résumé apart from the rest of the applicants. Leadership does not have to mean directly supervising others, but could be a mentorship program or volunteer work where you influenced others or made strategy-based choices for the direction of a project or company.

Mirror language used in the position description if you are applying for a specific job. Research and develop knowledge of the business, company and hiring manager if at all possible.

Articulate on your résumé how the role developed and thoroughly discuss what oversight you had of the project, data and team.

TYING IT ALL IN If you are an existing leader looking for a leadership position, ensure the summary statement on your résumé reflects your abilities and experience. The size of your team, the trainings you have led and the relationships you have developed and maintained should all reflect your leadership skills and weave throughout your résumé. If you are a newer staff member, find the elements of your skillset you can use to promote your leadership potential. Highlight a strategic focus in the first items on your résumé. Thinking about the bigger picture, long-term sustainability and the people whom you affect shows great leadership. n

Genevieve Hancock is a technical accountant specializing in complex modeling and changes in accounting guidance as a manager of financial reporting & audit for Trader Interactive based in Norfolk. She serves on the VSCPA Young Professionals Advisory Council (YPAC) and Disclosures Editorial Task Force.

T.Genevieve.Hancock@gmail.com connect.vscpa.com/GenevieveHancock linkedin.com/in/GenevieveHancock

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industry

MAKE THE RIGHT MOVES AS A STRATEGIC CFO Most CEOs favor CFOs who are strategic rather than tactical. Here’s where to put your energy.

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Mike DellaRipa, CPA, MBA, CGMA

survey of 549 CEOs recently published in CFO magazine showed 72 percent expect a CFO who is strategic — meaning they understand how to drive performance and growth while knowledgeable of mergers and acquisitions, talent management, regulations, compliance and innovation. The other 28 percent of CEOs seek someone tactical — they understand efficiency, internal control, managing working capital and getting the financials correct.

Clearly, the strategic skills are becoming more important for a CPA on a career path toward becoming a CFO and the tactical skills are becoming expectations rather than exceptional qualifications.

The strategic CFO will be an innovative person committed to concepts of continuous improvement and the success of the entire organization (not just accounting). This person will be able to recognize opportunities, not just problems, and when problems arise be able to focus on process before people and work effectively with the CEO and senior management team. Together they will be able to get to, and solve, the root cause of problems, ultimately leading to meeting the forecasted financial expectations of the organization.

importantly, that it is “headed in the right direction.”

The CFO must also recognize the need to support policies that can meet the needs simultaneously of four stakeholder groups involved with an organization: customers, employees, owners and vendors, all equally important.

The CFO must contribute to policies that recognize the additional responsibilities of the organization such as corporate social responsibility, diversity, work-life balance, cybersecurity and, of growing importance, senior leadership ethical behavior.

CUSTOMERS The strategic CFO must have a real understanding of what unique value the organization creates for customers. How are we different from our competitors? What customers choose us and why?

What is the relationship between price and the real value we create for our target customers? Why do customers leave us?

The CFO position also requires someone who understands the role of culture in strategic success and has the skills to help facilitate culture change when necessary. This requires the CFO be a good listener and motivator.

The fast growth success of the “$1 Retail” industry, by organizations like Dollar General, Family Dollar and Dollar Tree, is an example of companies segmenting a market and targeting the right products and price points to meet the needs of a unique but large customer base, and then building a business uniquely suited to the needs of these customers through rightsized and right-priced products.

The CFO position must be able to certify that the organization is “on the right track” and, more

Understanding customers requires time and effort to know, meet and listen to them. This could involve u

Know this...

• The strategic CFO must have a real understanding of what unique value the organization creates for customers.

• An organization’s long-term success is dependent upon the quality of its employees and its ability to understand their needs.

• Owners expect CFOs to have an exceptional financial reporting system in place supporting continuous improvement and showing accountability for results.

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Where organization policies should operate for long term success Customers

Owners

Vendors

going on sales calls with reps, learning to develop relationships with key decision makers, providing them information for their success and showing your organization as a value-added business partner and not being just another supplier.

In return, the strategic CFO should be asking for information from the customer about their future plans, their expectations from your products, services and organization and what new or innovative products or services they need.

Never forget that purchasing decisionmakers decide to do business with people they like and trust, but they like and trust you because your organization consistently delivers real value. Having someone answer live a customer’s phone call whenever an unexpected problem comes up can establish your company as a worryfree supplier and can differentiate your organization from your competition.

Southern New Hampshire University strives to answer calls live or respond within 8.5 minutes to phone messages. It has personal advisors assigned to students

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and delivers diplomas to students across the country via bus. It is no surprise it is the category leader in the market in which it competes.

In developing the annual strategic plan for the organization, focus on knowing what is important to your customers when they make their buying decisions, and then work with your CEO and senior management team so your organization can become world class in that area.

Always remember when measuring your organization against the competition, focus on your strongest competitor. Your goal should be to become No. 1 or at least No. 2 in markets in which you compete.

The strategic CFO understands that having excellent products and services can become an expectation as decades of industry consolidation has eliminated many weak competitors, leaving only the strong. Being able to provide customers information critical to their success is important in establishing a long-term relationship with a customer.

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EMPLOYEES (ASSOCIATES) Probably the most important factors in an organization’s long-term success are the quality of your employees and your organization’s ability to understand their needs so they stay motivated to want to go above and beyond daily. As Bill Gates of Microsoft said once, “Every day Microsoft’s most important assets leave our office building and every night I hope they come back the next day.”

Employees desire to have the best information available so they can be successful in their roles and contribute to the organization’s success. The strategic CFO will take ownership of the responsibility to get the right information to the right people at the right time for the entire organization to optimize performance.

This requires a paradigm shift, seeing coworkers as internal customers, measuring their satisfaction with the information they receive, and continually striving to improve the value of that information. One goal of the strategic CFO is to establish an

industry

information system world class in internal customer service.

Employees desire to have a sense of belonging and feel important in supporting an employer’s mission and vision they believe in. They also want to have input in decisions that affect their jobs and know a fair decision-making process is in place where all parties affected by changes can be given a chance for input before changes are made. The Kepner-Tregoe decision making process is one good example to consider. The CFO understands this and practices participative management.

Another new concept requiring innovation is planning to have some fun built into

working for your organization. Fun can help to foster a sense of team and a desire to remain a part of the organization Having mentors assigned to new employees goes a long way to getting new employees successfully through their first year and beyond. Having systems in place like the Gallup system or “Nine Motivators” can ensure employee needs and feedback are heard, as they do change with time. Never underestimate the importance for employees to feel heard; it’s a key reason people stay with an organization. Knowing how your employees would respond to the question, “Does my supervisor — and the company — care about me?” can prevent a good

employee from leaving.

A recent article in Harvard Business Review discussed the importance of trust to retain employees and encourage performance. Good organizations establish trust by sharing information, recognizing performance and listening to and then properly responding to employee concerns.

Incentives and bonus plans are important to retaining good (and especially star) employees, and should be well documented, be able to be measured and have goals in sync with the strategic plan.

They are becoming necessary today to compete in the market for top talent. u

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A recent survey of 3,400 employees

by CareerBuilder showed 55 percent in the age bracket of 18 to 24 are open to searching for a new job even while employed. This situation exists also for 42 percent of respondents ages 25–34.

Strategic CFOs must deal with the reality that younger employees have less loyalty to their employer and figuring how to keep them on board and engaged may be critical to the organization’s success.

The strategic CFO should work with the talent manager to ensure the organization also proactively and continually has innovative efforts to attract and retain the top talent necessary for achieving the strategic plan objectives and staying ahead of competitors for top talent.

place supporting continuous improvement and showing accountability for results.

Owners and the CEO expect the CFO to publish financial statements that show segment profitability or loss, which segments make money and which do not.

The CFO should have key performance indicator (KPI) reporting in place to ensure the needs of the four stakeholder groups are being met. Alan Mulally, the innovative CEO at Ford Motor Company during its turnaround, operated on 14 key KPIs from the CFO. Of high importance to owners is not only seeing current results meeting or

Some of the new practices of successful organizations are continual recruiting and starting it at a much earlier time for college graduates; pursuing candidates through many different, and sometimes very unique sources; and being innovative in your approach to staffing.

The CFO must be able to explain to the CEO and owners that forecasting is an art, not an exact science, and that the senior management team has contingency plans to address any problems when, and if,

Delivering Results - One Practice At a time

Employees also appreciate having continual training in an age when the only constant seems to be change.

Wade Holmes

888-847-1040 x2

OWNERS

Wade@APS.net

Owners expect management to have an exceptional financial reporting system in

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The cash position forecast should now consider funds being available for stock buy backs, a more common way now to ensure delivering favorable Earnings per Share (EPS) and dollar-per-share stock price results.

Imagine... a chair without a desk

Use your existing employees for referrals, who know very well what type of person will, or will not, “fit” into your organization. It is cost effective and smart to provide them a financial incentive for successful referrals. Once hired, wherever possible ensure flexibility in scheduling, expectation for time at the workplace, dress code and allowing employees to work from home periodically. These policies can retain employees, especially if they have children or care for elderly relatives.

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exceeding expectations but also that there is a realistic and continually updated longterm forecast in place for up to the next three to five years.

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Strategic skills are becoming more important for the CPA on a CFO career path. Tactical skills are becoming expectations rather than exceptional qualifications. forecast variances occur. The long-term forecast should be updated monthly or quarterly at minimum to account for the ongoing changes in the markets you compete in. Having a cross-functional sales and operations (and finance) partnership and planning meeting to get agreement on the forecast and track its accuracy goes a long way toward attaining and improving forecast accuracy.

Owners expect the CFO to know banking and have relationships in place to ensure resources are available when the right merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunity comes along. Keep in mind the advice from Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great”: “Sometimes the best decision is saying no to the wrong opportunity.”

Exercising due diligence and managing risk in a M&A are key CFO responsibilities.

Owners also expect senior management is able to make tough decisions and no sacred cows exist. While being able to make tough decisions is important, being able to make smart decisions is most important.

A recent Harvard Business Review article also stated one good way to ensure a successful M&A is to look first at what your organization can contribute into the acquisition to make it stronger, rather that first trying to see what you can get out of it. A different paradigm, but also very effective.

After taking over as CEO of a struggling Popeye’s Restaurant chain, Cheryl Bachelder implemented a policy of servant leadership with franchise owners, and in the process improved the stock price from $14 per share to $69 per share. She also challenged herself with a question “Are the people entrusted to our care better off?” Popeye’s was sold to Tim Hortons in February 2017 for $1.8 billion, a major success story.

Ann Rohde Payes, executive director of the nonprofit Big Brother Big Sister of Richmond, Tri-Cities and Hampton Roads, discontinued a very public fundraising event due to it using a lot of organization resources and not raising enough funds to sustain it.

Two women, in two vastly different organizations and circumstances, made two very tough but smart decisions. They are examples, along with Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer at Facebook, of a growing trend of qualified and successful women in executive-level positions.

VENDORS Vendors play a key role in the success of your organization and strategic plan objectives. The CFO working with purchasing should strive to establish vendor partnerships to ensure that vendors provide consistent compliance to customer specifications and expectations, especially on time deliveries; ensure the organization pays the vendor on time; make sure the vendor is provided future product or service demand requirements when needed; and allow vendors to have a vendor-managed inventory system in place.

CONCLUSION CEOs are asking for a higher skill set from their CFO, and as CPAs we are the most qualified with our training, knowledge and commitment to excellence to be able to fill the role of CFO — be it in a business, nonprofit or other organization.

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CPAs are, without a doubt, the “best of the best” when it comes to qualifications for a strategic CFO. To maintain being a strategic CFO, CPAs must be committed to continual skill updating. Spending 30 minutes a week reading Harvard Business Review is a good resource to learn how other organizations are successful in new ways. Keeping advised of the changes in technology is important. CFOs also recognize that while technical skills are great to have, having emotional intelligence and being able to communicate effectively are also necessary. A good strategic CFO will also have a good mentor in their life.

The challenge for the CPA in a CFO role will be putting together a solid staff capable of doing the important tactical work in accounting, allowing the CFO to concentrate on working with the CEO and senior management team on the strategic issues. The CFO will ensure the four stakeholder groups’ needs are met, and a well-thought out strategic plan is in place with contingencies, ensuring success in the future. In closing, a CPA in a strategic CFO position is called to become more than just an excellent accountant. n

Mike DellaRipa, CPA, MBA, CGMA, has been the CFO for two companies and now is self-employed with his consulting firm, Mike DellaRipa LLC in Mechanicsville. He has also worked in sales and with operations as a facilitator for a mid-sized manufacturing and distribution organization.

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dellaripa67@comcast.net connect.vscpa.com/MikeDellaRipa

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employee benefits

GET THE LAST LAUGH IN RETIREMENT WITH THE QBI DEDUCTION

Use the tax overhaul so you and your clients can utilize a qualified retirement plan to get a QBI deduction — and the last laugh on your old friends.

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s third-party administrators, we can get very anxious when we learn that Congress is thinking of tinkering with the retirement plan rules in the tax code. We wonder, will this help our clients? Will it hurt them? We also wonder how our own business will be affected.

When retirement plan law is changed, it is usually easy to decide whether a given change is good or bad:

By David J. Kupstas, FSA, EA, MSPA

• Allowing companies to make bigger contributions to defined benefit plans: Good!

• Reducing the compensation that may be taken into account when determining benefits: Bad! • Introducing safe harbor 401(k) plans so the Actual Deferral Percentage (ADP) test may be avoided: Good!

Then along came the much-anticipated Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), a.k.a. “tax reform,” a.k.a.

“An Act to provide for reconciliation pursuant to titles II and V of the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2018.” Yes, that last one is actually the real name of this law, but that’s a story for another day. Anyhow, they might as well have called it the Accountants and Actuaries Full Employment Act, because all of us in these professions are going to be working night and day trying to figure out what this law means to us and our clients.

THERE WERE ‘NO CHANGES’ TO THE 401(K) LIMITS In his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised us tax reform. As summer turned to fall in 2017

and it appeared tax reform stood a good chance of becoming reality, a couple of concerns emerged in the retirement plan industry. First, rumor had it that the limit on pre-tax 401(k) deferrals might be lowered from $18,000 to $2,400. Salary deferrals exceeding the new lower threshold would be subject to “Rothification,” meaning they would be after-tax, a la the Roth IRA. This change would clearly fall under the “bad” category. In response to these reports, President Trump tweeted, “There will be NO change to your 401(k).

This has always been a great and popular middle class tax break that works, and it stays!” Indeed, the 401(k) limits, as well as pretty much everything else directly related to qualified retirement plans, were not touched.

This doesn’t mean the retirement-plan industry got off scot-free. Another proposal called for capping the tax rate on pass-through income from entities such as S corporations, LLCs, partnerships and sole proprietors.

Why is that so bad? The concern was that small businesses would be less likely to sponsor retirement plans. If a business owner could take income today and pay tax at a reduced rate, why should he adopt a retirement plan and pay a higher rate in the future when the distributions from that plan were taxed as ordinary income?

Unlike the 401(k) limit changes, a reduction of sorts in the pass-through income tax rate did make its way into the final tax reform bill. Did this kill the incentive for a small business to adopt a qualified retirement plan?

We think not — and we certainly hope not, or else we will put on our third-party administrator hat and unequivocally declare this to be a bad law! u

Know this...

• A reduction in the pass-through income tax rate was part of the final tax reform bill, but it did not kill the incentive for small businesses to adopt qualified retirement plans.

• The Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction was designed to give pass-through entity owners a tax break on par with that given to C corporations.

• Generally, the QBI deduction is 20 percent of the lesser of QBI and the taxpayer’s taxable income as reduced by net capital gains and qualified cooperative dividends.

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Usually when a limit is reached, the deduction is capped, but you still get the deduction on dollars up to that limit. With a specified service business, anyone exceeding the taxable income threshold loses the QBI deduction completely.

QBI DEDUCTION KEEPS PASS-THROUGHS ON PAR WITH C CORPS The Section 199A, or Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction, has gained significant attention in the retirement plan world, so we will spend the remainder of this article discussing that provision and its possible impact on qualified retirement plans. Here are a few facts to get us started: • TCJA reduced the C corporation tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. The QBI deduction was designed to give passthrough entity owners a tax break on par with that given to C corporations.

• Generally, the QBI deduction is 20 percent of the lesser of qualified business income and the taxpayer’s taxable income as reduced by net capital gains and qualified cooperative dividends. The QBI deduction is not used to compute Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), but rather is a “below-the-line” deduction.

• It matters whether the pass-through entity is a “specified service trade or business.” Specified service trades or businesses are health, law, accounting, actuarial science, performing arts, consulting, athletics, financial services, brokerage services or any trade or business where the principal asset of such trade or business is the reputation or skill of one or more of its employees or owners. Engineering and architecture are specifically excluded from the list of occupations.

• There are limitations and phase-outs for this deduction. We will discuss these briefly as we go on.

Let us look now at a few examples.

SMALL BUSINESS WITH OWNER BELOW THE INCOME THRESHOLD The full 20 percent QBI deduction is available to any pass-through entity owner whose total taxable income is below $157,500

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(single filers) or $315,000 (married joint filers). The taxable income for this purpose is computed without regard to the QBI deduction.

Consider these facts about Adams, who is married and the 100 percent owner and sole employee of an S corporation: Qualified business income: $140,000 W-2 wages: $100,000 Other income: $10,000 Taxable income: $250,000 20 percent QBI deduction (20 percent × $140,000): $28,000 Net taxable income ($250,000 - $28,000): $222,000 We haven’t said what occupation Adams is in, but it does not really matter. Because his taxable income is below the $315,000 threshold, he is eligible for the QBI deduction.

Now assume Adams adopts a defined benefit (DB) plan and contributes $60,000. The numbers now look like this: Qualified business income: $80,000 Taxable income: $190,000 20 percent QBI deduction (20 percent × $80,000): $16,000 Net taxable income ($190,000 - $16,000): $174,000 Without the plan, Adams’ net taxable income is $222,000. With the plan, it is $174,000. That’s a $48,000 reduction. In that sense, the $60,000 contribution is 80 percent deductible [($222,000 - $174,000) ÷ $60,000]. Adams may not think it is worth it to contribute to the retirement plan. Indeed, under TCJA, it is passthrough entity owners whose taxable incomes fall below the $157,500/$315,000 threshold who are most likely to eschew a retirement plan.

Still, it must be noted that the $60,000 will grow tax-deferred in the qualified retirement plan. Moreover, there is an underlying assumption when deciding to contribute to a retirement plan that the owner will be in a lower tax bracket when the contributions are ultimately withdrawn than during the high-income working years. The incentives to contribute may be higher if Adams

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resides in a state with high state and local income taxes (SALT) and itemizes deductions. The retirement plan contributions could reduce income subject to state income tax so that no SALT deduction is lost due to the new $10,000 limit.

There are very good reasons to adopt a retirement plan besides the tax benefits. Having a plan helps attract and retain talent, contribute to the financial well-being of employees and owners and perhaps protect assets from creditors, among other things.

Perhaps Adams will sponsor a retirement plan for these reasons.

In some cases, it pays to start a retirement plan even if the current benefits are not apparent. Maximum contributions and benefits can be achieved in a defined benefit plan if the owner participates in the plan for at least 10 years. Having more years of participation “expands the bucket” into which contributions may be made.

Often, when assisting with the startup of a new defined benefit plan, we wish the plan had been set up a year or two earlier with modest contributions. Having those additional years of

participation would have paved the way for larger contributions once the business started to flourish. Oh, well. Hindsight is 20/20.

SPECIFIED SERVICE BUSINESS OWNER ABOVE INCOME THRESHOLD Now we will move on to Baker, Adams’s old nemesis from high school. Baker always wanted to outdo Adams — on the football field, in the classroom, in dating — and almost always did. These days, Baker owns a business just like his old buddy Adams, except his income is double that of Adams. We will mention here that Baker is a prominent local attorney. Here are Baker’s numbers: Qualified business income: W-2 wages: Other income: Taxable income:

$280,000 $200,000 $20,000 $500,000 u

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The QBI deduction is not listed. Did you guess that it is $0? You guessed correctly. Baker’s taxable income is too high to qualify for the QBI deduction. When there is a specified service trade or business, like Baker’s law firm, the QBI deduction starts to phase out once you hit the $157,500 or $315,000 taxable income thresholds. The deduction goes down on a sliding scale for the next $50,000 of income after $157,500 for single taxpayers and for the next $100,000 of income after $315,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly. When there is taxable income exceeding $207,500 (single) and $415,000 (married filing jointly), the QBI deduction is lost.

Stop for a moment and digest that. Usually when an income threshold or other limit is reached in the tax world, the relevant deduction or benefit is capped, but you still get the deduction or benefit on the dollars up to the limit. In this case, anyone exceeding the taxable income threshold loses the QBI deduction completely. Baker gets zippo for a QBI deduction. Adams must be laughing hysterically.

But, as he did throughout high school and even into their adult years, Baker is going to have the last laugh. How? He is going to adapt and contribute $200,000 to a defined benefit retirement plan. Now let’s see how those numbers look: Qualified business income: $80,000 Taxable income: $300,000 20 percent QBI deduction (20 percent × $80,000): $16,000 Net taxable income ($300,000 - $16,000): $284,000 Voilà! On the strength of a $200,000 defined benefit contribution, Baker’s taxable income is now comfortably below the $315,000 threshold for taking the full QBI deduction. In Adams’s case, it was questionable whether a retirement plan should be funded. For Baker, the choice makes more sense. The $200,000 contribution reduces his net taxable income by $216,000.

If you’re thinking that $200,000 sounds like a lot for one person to be contributing to a plan, you’re right. Unlike defined contribution plans where annual contributions may not exceed $55,000 or $61,000, it is definitely possible for a business owner to be able to contribute $200,000 to a defined benefit plan under the right circumstances.

SOLE PROPRIETOR WITH HUGE INCOME Finally, let’s move on to Carmen, a sole proprietor with $500,000 in net Schedule C income and QBI. Assume she is married and files a joint tax return. Carmen is a medical-device salesperson who works by herself.

Since medical device sales is not a specified service trade or

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business, Carmen would seem to qualify for the 20 percent QBI deduction with ease. She is not subject to those pesky income thresholds. While that is true, there are wage and capital limits she is going to have to contend with. Specifically, the deductible amount for a trade or business is the lesser of 1. 20 percent of the qualified business income, or 2. The greater of a. 50 percent of the W-2 wages with respect to the qualified trade or business, or b. 25 percent of the W-2 wages with respect to the qualified trade or business, plus 2.5 percent of the cost of qualified property.

This is a lot to chew, but let’s make it easy on ourselves by assuming Carmen has no qualified property. And, of course, she has no employees, so there are no W-2 wages. As such, item 2 is $0. The QBI deduction is the lesser of item 1 and item 2. Since item 2 is $0, it must be the lesser item. Therefore, there is no QBI deduction available for Carmen.

Here again, a large retirement plan contribution will save the day.

If Carmen can afford to contribute $200,000 to a defined benefit plan, this contribution will be deducted on the front of Form 1040 as an “above-the-line” deduction, offsetting the $500,000 in Schedule C income. If she can keep her other income at $15,000 or less, she’ll be below the $315,000 taxable income threshold for taking the full 20 percent QBI deduction.

Here are the relevant numbers: Taxable income without DB plan: $500,000 Qualified business income with DB plan: $300,000 Taxable income with DB plan: $300,000 20 percent QBI deduction (20 percent × $300,000): $60,000 Net taxable income ($300,000 - $60,000): $240,000 As with Baker, Carmen’s defined benefit contribution reduces her net taxable income by more than the amount of contribution ($200,000 contribution vs. $260,000 reduction in taxable income).

CONCLUSION As others have said, TCJA may or may not have been “tax reform,” but it certainly was not “tax simplification.” Unfortunately, space does not permit us to give an exhaustive review of the QBI deduction with more complex examples and discussion about the finer points. (We didn’t even attempt to define “qualified business income.”) In addition, we are operating without the benefit of regulations and other guidance. When such guidance is issued, our interpretations may change.

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employee benefits

UPCOMING BENEFITSRELATED EDUCATION

That being said, it does not appear the fears of a major decline in retirement plan sponsorship or contributions will come to fruition.

Some businesses may choose to scale back their plans, while others will look to ramp them up further. As was the case before tax reform, plan sponsors will wish to consult with their advisors for a thorough analysis of how a qualified retirement plan fits into the business’s and the owner’s overall financial picture. n

July 11 — Social Security, Medicare & Prescription Drug Retirement Benefits: What Every Baby Boomer Needs to Know Now, Virginia Beach Oct. 29 — Auditing Employee Benefit Plans, Reston

David J. Kupstas, FSA, EA, MSPA, is ACG’s chief actuary. He possesses an intricate working knowledge of ERISA, as well as U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) regulations as they pertain to plan administration and compliance, and is a CPE instructor for CPAs.

Oct. 20 — Audits of 401(k) Plans, Reston Nov. 14 — Employee Benefit Plan Audit Workshop, online Nov. 27 — Social Security & Medicare: Maximizing Retirement Benefits, Richmond

dkupstas@acgworldwide.com acgworldwide.com

Visit vscpa.com/cpe to register.

Virginia Beach Retreat Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront | July 10–12 Three days of sun, sand and learning by the sea. The Virginia Beach Retreat provides a warm getaway and opportunity to earn up to 24 CPE credits on topics including accounting and auditing, tax, CFO interests and technology.

The following details apply to all classes: Time: 8 a.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Credit: Up to 8 per seminar — up to 24 for attending each day!

Best Price (member/nonmember): $309/$409 before June 11

vscpa.com/VaBeachRetreat

ACCOUNTING & AUDITING

CFO

TAX

TECHNOLOGY

July 10

Preparation, Compilation & Review Standards: The Best Annual Update & Review of the SSARS

Annual Update for Controllers

The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act & Understanding Section 199A

Excel Boot Camp for CPAs

July 11

Preparing Financial Statements for Small- & Medium-Sized Businesses: The Best Annual Update & Review of U.S. GAAP, Tax & Cash Financial Reporting

Analytics & Big Data for Accountants

Social Security, Medicare & Prescription Drug Retirement Benefits: What Every Baby Boomer Needs to Know Now

Excel, Outlook, Word, OneNote, Powerpoint, Skype for Business & Office 365 — Improve Personal Productivity

July 12

The Business Financial Health Checkup: A Process to Identify Misstatements & Profitability Roadblocks Using Analytical Procedures as the Primary Tool

Financial Statement Analysis: Basis for Management Advice

The Top 50 Mistakes Practitioners Make & How to Fix Them: Individual Tax & Financial Planning

Data Privacy & Security Considerations: Microsoft Office File

Taught by Walter J. Haig II, CPA

Taught by James Lindell, CPA

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Taught by Susan Smith, CPA

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Taught by Judy Borsher, CPA

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accounting education

COLLEGES DIVE INTO BIG DATA EDUCATION Some Virginia colleges and universities are creating ways for accounting students to get the data analysis skills they need to succeed in the workplace.

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accounting education

T

he random sample isn’t necessarily going away, but it’s no longer the absolute standard for audits. Big Four firms and others with massive resources have the ability to look at entire populations.

Chip Knighton

“We all grew up in random sampling, representative sampling, looking for anomalies in the population by selecting things,” Dan Hudgens, CPA, a partner at Deloitte in Richmond, said at the VSCPA’s Top Firms Roundtable last September. “With data analytics, being able to look at 100 percent populations, we’re able to focus our audits much more.”

However, having the tools to look at a 100 percent population doesn’t do any good without CPAs trained in analyzing it. Some Virginia colleges and universities are looking to fill that need through data analytics courses in accounting curricula, and one has created an entire new master’s program with a generous assist from a Big Four firm.

Virginia Tech is currently preparing to welcome the first students in its new KPMG Master of Accounting With Data and Analytics Program (MADA), offered through the university’s Pamplin College of Business.

The one-year program begins in earnest this fall with its first Accounting Analytics cohort including five KPMG-sponsored students, who will receive full tuition, room and board in exchange for agreeing to work for KPMG for three years.

Virginia Tech was one of seven universities that joined the program in 2017, with nine schools currently taking part. The program, which began at the Ohio

State University Max M. Fisher College of Business and the Villanova School of Business, enrolls 135 students across the nine schools each year. Students go through a busy-season internship with KPMG, graduate with the extra 30 credit hours needed to sit for the CPA Exam and start out at KPMG as an advanced associate.

However, the benefits to Virginia Tech go far beyond those five students.

“Our faculty have undergone training with the KPMG methodologies and tools, and KPMG is making some proprietary and open-source tools available in the cloud for all master’s students in the program to utilize,” said Jack Maher, head of Virginia Tech’s Department of Accounting & Information Systems.

“That was very important with us — to be able to integrate this with our other students.”

The MADA program was a natural outgrowth of Virginia Tech’s focus on technology in its accounting program. The need for technology-driven accounting professionals is growing more acute as audits evolve to encompass much larger data sets, and the university aims to prepare its students to use the tools available to analyze that data. KPMG signed a two-year deal with Virginia Tech to partner on the MADA program, and Maher expects the partnership to continue beyond that time.

“We’ve tried to always incorporate information systems into our classes, and I think we’ve been very successful with that over the years,” Maher said. “Employers have told us continuously over many years that our students are usually a bit ahead of students from u

Know this...

• Accountants are being asked to use data analysis more and more in the workplace, especially in audits, and Virginia colleges and universities are starting to offer courses to train them.

• In addition to employers beginning to demand data analysis skills from recruits, some Big Four firms, like KPMG, are working directly with universities to institute programs teaching accounting analytics.

• Finding the sweet spot in the depth of knowledge accounting students need is a tricky balance for accounting programs to strike.

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accounting education

“We stress the importance of harnessing the power of data to use it as a tool to be able to do your job more effectively. That begins with being able to structure and organize data.”

— U.Va. professor Chris Maurer other universities in terms of their technology skills. We’ve always had this information technology approach to the accounting classes, but this is putting a little more refined edge on it and getting us additional tools that we hadn’t utilized as extensively before.”

Other Virginia universities are putting more resources into analytics training.

Chris Maurer, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s (U.Va.) McIntire School of Commerce, teaches a master’slevel course called “Data Management and Analytics for Accountants,” focused on training future CPAs on business analytics and database design.

“The premise is that accountants, much like any other professional, come across large amounts of data. To do their job, they have to be able to sift through large data sets, huge Excel files, etc.,” he said. “We stress the importance of harnessing the power of data to use it as a tool to be able to do your job more effectively. That begins with being able to structure and organize data.”

The course grew out of a growing demand from the accounting industry to expose students to more analytics topics, as well as a request from another McIntire School professor, VSCPA member Eric Negangard, CPA, who noticed that he was spending a lot of time teaching data analysis concepts in his forensic accounting class.

It was from that idea that the data analytics class was born. (The McIntire School also offers an undergraduate-level data analysis class aimed at information technology (IT) students, which focuses more on database

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creation.) The master’s-level class trains students on database design and the use of analytic tools in gleaning insight from large data sets.

are looking for from future CPAs. Other Virginia universities are also ramping up their own data analytics offerings based on the needs of accounting firms and students.

The course is taught by IT professors, not accountants, although Maurer spent two years working in KPMG’s advisory practice before going back to academia. He and his fellow professors consulted with numerous accounting professors in developing the course. But a major portion of the course involves helping accounting students understand what data scientists do.

Virginia Commonwealth University offers a Master of Accountancy degree with a concentration in data analytics, while Old Dominion University (ODU) and the College of William & Mary offer data analytics concentrations outside of their accounting curricula. Christopher Newport University (CNU) is in the same boat, offering an introductory analytics course through its business school that’s required for several concentrations, but not accounting.

“They do a project where they have to build a database from scratch,” Maurer said. “They have to pick a problem, preferably one that has some kind of accounting or financial overtones, and they have to figure out what kind of data is out there that is important to be able to capture for this problem, and they have to design and build a database completely on their own.”

The use of Standard Querying Language (SQL), a programming language used in storing, manipulating and retrieving data from databases, is another key part of the course. The idea is that students understand how to work with data sets and find the data that’s most applicable to the particular problem they’re investigating.

Later, they learn to use Tableau, an analytics and visualization tool that connects to a database, pulls data and creates visualizations.

Maurer has fine-tuned the course through feedback from students, professors and, perhaps most importantly, accounting firms that offer insight into what skills they

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CNU also offers two one-credit lab courses focused on advanced Excel and Access applications for business. CNU accounting professor Gabriele Lingenfelter, CPA, a member of the VSCPA Board of Directors, encourages her students to take all three courses and says that 80 percent of CNU accounting students have taken at least one of the labs.

“The employers are demanding it,” she said. “They want students who have advanced Excel capabilities and data analytics backgrounds. This is just a start, but we would like to introduce data analytics in all our disciplines. But you have to have the people who teach it and make room in the curriculum for it.”

Lingenfelter has also worked to incorporate analytics into her own courses and would like to make the analytics course a requirement for accounting students, but says that accounting information systems takes priority over analytics because of

accounting education

its presence on the CPA Exam. She has encouraged students with a particular interest in the field to take the courses at ODU and William & Mary, but would prefer to see the course integrated into the accounting curriculum rather than on its own.

“If you look at the curriculum, it looks all really great, but I wouldn’t say that it’s going to be for a student that’s just going out and needs it for an auditing engagement,” Lingenfelter said. “William & Mary does have a master’s in data analytics, which I think is great, but it’s not integrated with the discipline itself.

“They don’t have the auditing class that incorporates data analytics. It’s a whole program on data analytics. It would be overkill. I look at those courses and I don’t know what my students would do with it.”

said. “We’re giving the skills right now.

What I think we can do a better job at doing is giving the skills in that context that the students will see when they’re working professionals and licensed CPAs.”

CNU is working hard to encourage accounting students to take the analytics course as an elective. Virginia Tech offers an entire program on analytics concepts.

At U.Va., the next step is to incorporate more relevant data in its training.

Finding the sweet spot in the depth of knowledge accounting students need is a tricky balance for accounting programs to strike.

“If you’re familiar with database management and SQL, it doesn’t matter what the data looks like, what it is. You can equally apply it to any context,” Maurer

“Accountants are generally not going to be data scientists. They’re not going to need the real, real deep analytics knowledge to actually create all the models from scratch,” Maurer said. “But they do need to know what goes into analytical modeling and creating prediction models and all these analytical techniques, because they’re going to be asked to audit them.

They’re going to be asked to interact with the data scientists and the people within their clients who are engaging in this.”

Or, as Virginia Tech’s Maher puts it, “Firms indicate that the audit of the future is going to be much more data-driven and will require accountants who have these data analytics skills to be able to handle very large data sets. The tools and software are designed to be able to handle hundreds, thousands, millions of records.

Everything we hear from the firms is that more and more accountants must have an understanding of utilizing large data analytic techniques to be able to perform in the workplace.” n

Chip Knighton is communications manager at the VSCPA, as well as contributing editor at Disclosures magazine. cknighton@vscpa.com connect.vscpa.com/ChipKnighton @ChipKnighton

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leadership

The LEAD Round: The importance of organizational culture

Visit the VSCPA LEAD website at vscpa.com/LEAD.

Marty Einhorn, CPA

Tommy Blackburn, CPA

C

orporate culture is the sheet music that members of an organization follow. A strong culture can help guide employees’ decisions and ensure they act in accordance with the values an organization deems important. A strong corporate culture infuses even the smallest actions employees take.

We went in-depth on corporate culture in this edition of the LEAD Round.

We asked two VSCPA members — a seasoned CPA and a young professional — about why organizational culture is so important. Here’s what Tommy Blackburn, CPA, financial planner at Verus Financial Partners in Richmond, and Marty Einhorn, CPA, managing partner at Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer in Norfolk, had to say.

What is organizational culture and why is it important?

TB: Organizational culture is the DNA of a firm. It is the people, beliefs and values that make up a firm. The culture of an organization creates the tone and environment inside a firm, which is also reflected externally. It sets the expectations and the mission of the organization.

Culture is the blood of an organization.

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It is the shared values and beliefs that make up a firm. It creates the environment that a team operates in, can foster teamwork and productivity and create synergies. Culture can be palpable to the outside world. It will not only define and influence the mission of an organization, but also the expectations and manner in which it is to be achieved, and it can motivate the members of the organization.

It is vital that there is a culture and that the members align with it. When the entire organization has a consistent culture, there is not a question of how to do things, how to work together or what manner to accomplish objectives.

It can foster a strong team environment and allow an organization to be efficient and accomplish otherwise difficult or unattainable tasks. Culture can create a uniformity that is visible to external stakeholders and deliver a standardized experience.

Culture can also attract and retain talent by creating an environment and mission that like-minded professionals want to be a part of/believe in, and simultaneously it can attract and retain clients that believe in the mission of the firm and how it is to be accomplished

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and have a desire to conduct business in accordance with the culture of the firm.

ME: Organizational culture consists of the values consistently demonstrated by the leadership of a company. It is important to distinguish between the spoken or even written values and those demonstrated consistently by the actions of the leadership. Employees generally want to be part of an organization that has both vision and purpose. To the extent the vision and purpose are well-communicated and are consistent with the actions of the leadership, most employees will buy in to these values and will develop personal goals and expectations that align with the organizational culture.

This alignment of efforts allows the organization to grow and prosper more quickly than if the organizational culture is poorly defined or inconsistently communicated.

In addition, a well-defined organizational culture is a very effective recruiting tool as it allows potential hires to understand what is important to a company and its people and whether this aligns with their personal and professional goals. n

vscpa news

Congratulations to the following members!

We want to hear from you!

Email disclosures@ vscpa.com if you have exciting news to share.

Samantha Doe, CPA, Rachel Jones, CPA, Jeremy Powell, CPA, Renee Watson, CPA.

APPOINTMENTS & AWARDS

NEW HIRES Judy Gavant, CPA, was named chief financial officer at Bay Banks of Virginia, Inc., in Richmond.

Ed Gillaspie, CPA, was hired as director of finance and administration at the Virginia Institute of Autism in Charlottesville.

Amanda Richter, CPA, has joined Hook Law Center in Virginia Beach as the firm’s on-site CPA.

YWCA South Hampton Roads honored its 30th class of “Women of Distinction,” who exemplify the YWCA’s mission to eliminate racism and empower women, including Joanna Brumsey, CPA, shareholder at Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer in Norfolk.

Lynne Doughtie, CPA, of Powhatan, chairman and CEO of KPMG, was named to Virginia Business’s list of the 50 Most Influential Virginians.

Olga Sigurdson, CPA, has joined Updegrove, Combs & McDaniel as a staff accountant in the firm’s Leesburg office.

FIRM NEWS

Casey Ward has joined Christopher A. Enright, CPA, in Montpelier as a staff accountant.

The National Association for Female Executives named its Top 70 Companies for Executive Women, which included the following firms: BDO USA, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Grant Thornton and KPMG.

PROMOTIONS Kositzka, Wicks & Co. in Alexandria has promoted Samantha Doe, CPA, and Rachel Jones, CPA, to supervisor and Resa Wilhite, CPA, to manager.

PBMares announced the following promotions: Andrew Basile, CPA, to supervisor in the Fredericksburg office; Jon-Michael Rosch, CPA, to manager in the Warrenton office; and Philip Smith to senior in the Norfolk office.

Thompson Greenspon in Fairfax won Inavero’s Best of Accounting Award for providing superior service for the second year in a row.

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS Richmond-based Cherry Bekaert has added Austin, Texas-based Powell, Ebert & Smolik.

Jeremy Powell, CPA, and Renee Watson, CPA, were promoted to principal at Goldklang Group CPAs in Reston.

THE VSCPA MOURNS...

Michelle Vaughan, CPA, was promoted to senior accountant at Mitchell Wiggins in Petersburg.

DISCLOSURES

William Owens, CPA, a VSCPA Life member from McLean.

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vscpa news

STAFF NEWS

Maureen Dingus, CAE, Janie Medley, Doris Pennington, Tara Pennington, Diane Jones

ANNIVERSARIES

June 18: Member Services & Event Coordinator Tara Pennington, 6 years

May 15: Chief Operating Officer Maureen Dingus, CAE, 11 years

June 19: Senior Manager, Finance & Administration Diane Jones, 12 years

June 5: Employer Outreach Specialist Janie Medley, 12 years

NEW HIRE

June 6: Member Services Assistant Doris Pennington, 4 years

Alan Nicholas has joined the VSCPA as peer review manager. Welcome to the team, Alan!

THE VSCPA’S NEWEST VIRGINIA CPA LICENSEES Flora Berisha, Chesapeake Sagar Bhatt, Fairfax Station Alicia Burdick, Woodbridge Sonya Carwile, Charlotte Court House KuanYu Chen, Vienna Prashant Dhingra, Glen Allen Ali Farooq, Manassas Eric Gladding, Virginia Beach Ariel Hayes, Henrico Kesroy Henry, Alexandria Kristopher Jones, Henrico Benjamin Medor, Arlington Christopher Millsap, Sterling Jennifer Neale, Centreville Stacy Ren, Palmdale, Calif.

Meagan Schultz, Williamsburg Jonathan Sheard, Suffolk Mary Wade, McLean

Change to VSCPA Board of Directors slate Due to unexpected circumstances, Rick White, CPA, will be unable to serve on the VSCPA Board of Directors in 2018–2019 and has been removed from the slate of nominees to be voted on at the Annual Meeting on May 10 in Richmond. Christine Williamson, CPA, partner with CohnReznick in Tysons, has been added to the slate in his place.

ONLINE CPE TEST Want CPE credit just for reading Disclosures magazine? Take our easy CPE test! Visit vscpa.com/CPE. Choose “On Demand” from the side filters to find the exam and others from previous Disclosures issues.

List from February and March. Compiled April 2, 2018.

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vscpa news

VSCPA 100% Member Firms VSCPA 100% Member Firms show their commitment to their employees, the profession and the association. A 100% Member Firm is simply a Virginia CPA firm or company that has all of its CPAs enrolled as members in the VSCPA. Interested in being listed as a 100% Member Firm? Contact VSCPA Membership Development Director Julia Henderson at jhenderson@vscpa.com.

A.F. Thomas & Associates, PC A. Rohm, Smith & Company, PC Actuarial Benefits & Design Company Adams & Co., PC Adams & Delp, PC Anderson & Anderson CPAs, PC Anderson & Reed, LLP Andrews CPA Associates, PC Atlas Financial Barnes, Brock, Cornwell and Painter Beale & Curran, PC Beck & Company, CPAs, PC Bennett, Atkinson & Associates, PC Bishop, Farmer & Co., LLP Black Marlin CPA (Ann Black CPA PLC) Boyce, Spady & Moore PLC Britt & Peak, PC, CPAs Bruce, Renner & Company, PLC Bullock & Associates, P. C. Burdette Smith & Bish, LLC Burgess & Co., PC, CPAs Burnett & Sneed, CPAs, LLC Cameron, Moberly & Hamrick, P.C. Charles H. McCoy, Jr., Inc. Charles W. Snader, PC Chesapeake Accounting Group PC Christopher A. Enright, CPA, PLC Cole & Associates CPAs, LLC Coley, Eubank & Company, PC Corbin & Company, PC Craver, Green and Company, PLC Creedle, Jones and Alga, PC CST Group, CPAs, PC Dalal & Company David L Zimmer CPA PC Deloitte Didawick & Company, PC Donald R. Pinkleton, CPA

Donald W. Coleman, CPA, Inc., PC DT & Company, PLC DuvallWheeler, LLP Eggleston & Eggleston, PC Elmore, Hupp & Company, PLC Everett O. Winn, CPA, PLC Fritz & Company, PC, CPAs G.L. Roberson CPA, PLLC G4 CPA Firm, Inc. Garland & Garland, CPAs, PC Garris and Company, PC Graham and Poirot, CPA, PC Gregg & Bailey, PC Gregory & Associates, PLLC Gurman & Company, PLLC Hampton & Everett, PC Hantzmon Wiebel LLP Harris, Hardy, & Johnstone, PC Harris, Harvey, Neal & Company Henley & Henley, PC Hogan & Reed, PC, CPAs Holland & Brown LLP Homes, Lowry, Horn & Johnson, Ltd. Honeycutt & McGuire, PC Hortenstine and McCown, CPAs, PC Hottel & Willis, PC Hughes & Basye, PC Hunt, Calderone & Abbott PC Jay E Reiner CPA PLLC John M. Watkins, CPA Jones & Company CPA, LLC Jones & McIntyre, PLLC Jones CPA Group, PC Jones, Madden & Council, PLC JS Morlu, LLC Katherine L. Foley CPA, PC Keiter Kimble Kositzka, Wicks & Company

DISCLOSURES

Kris McMackin CPA L.P. Martin & Company, PC Lane & Associates, PC Larry D. Greene, CPA, PC Lauren V. Wolcott, CPA, PC Lent & Hawthorne, PC M. Lee Winder & Associates, PC Maida Development Company Mallard & Mallard CPAs, LLC Malvin, Riggins & Company, PC Martin, Beachy & Arehart, PLLC McCallum & Kudravetz, PC Meadows Urquhart Acree & Cook, LLP Michael B. Cooke, CPA, PC Michael R. Anliker CPA PC Miller Consulting Group, LLC Mitchell, Wiggins & Company, LLP Moss & Riggs, PLLC Mulkey & Co., PC Murray, Jonson, White & Assoc., Ltd. Nicholas, Jones & Co., PLC PBMares, LLP Pearson&Co., PC PricewaterhouseCoopers R.P. Willis, PC R.T. McCalpin & Associates, LLC Renner & Company, CPAs, PC Robb Scott Bradshaw & Rawls, PC. Robinson Consulting Group Roger L. Handy, PC Rubin, Koehmstedt & Nadler, PLC Rumble & Associates, Inc. Russell, Evans & Thompson, PLLC Rutherford & Johnson, PC Salter & Associates, PC Saunders & Saunders, PC Saunders, Matthews & Pfitzner, PLLC Scheulen, Patchett & Edwards, PC

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Sells Hogg & Associates CPAs, PC Sherman, Spero, Safarino & Spencer, Hager & Mosdell, PC Spitler, Stephens & Associates PLLC Stephen F. Perry, CPA, PC Stephen Merritt CPA, PC Stephen T. Shickel, CPA, PLC Steve Guy & Associates, PC Steve Walls & Associates, PLLC Stokes Office Solutions Sullivan, Andrews & Taylor PC T.L. Pyne, PC Terry L. Jones, CPA, LLC The Davidson Group, PC The Foley Group, Ltd. Thompson Greenspon Tongelidis Consulting, LLC Updegrove, Combs & McDaniel, PLC Valderas Financial Solutions LLC VanHuss & Associates, PLLC DBA Verus Financial Partners W.D. Sanders & Company, PC Wall, Einhorn & Chernitzer WellsColeman White, Withers, Masincup & Cannaday Wilkinson Consulting & CPA PLC William B. May, Jr., CPA, PC Wineholt & Associates, PC Yancey, Bowman & Helsley, CPA Yount, Hyde & Barbour, PC

Compiled April 10, 2018.

Check vscpa.com/100Percent for a complete list.

DISCLOSURES.VSCPA.COM

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classifieds

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OFFICE SHARING ARRANGEMENT. CPA firm located in Springfield, Virginia (intersection of 495 and Braddock Road) has turnkey office space available. The arrangement would include up to three offices including furniture, conference and kitchen facilities, telephone, internet, and photocopying. If interested, please contact Larry Spring at lspring@spring-cpa.com.

Classified ads are a great way to reach VSCPA members — 94 percent rate the information in Disclosures as excellent or good. What are you waiting for? Contact us at classifieds@vscpa.com or visit vscpa.com/Classifieds for rate information. Members receive a discount.

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Virginia Society of CPAs 4309 Cox Road Glen Allen, VA 23060

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