WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today announced the selection of six new members to the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council (IRSAC), which provides an organized public forum for IRS officials and representatives of the public to discuss key tax administration issues.

Members are selected to represent the taxpaying public, tax professionals, small and large businesses, academia and the payroll community. The council provides the IRS commissioner and division leadership with important feedback, observations and suggestions.

“We are fortunate to have these new members of IRSAC,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. “The members bring a wealth of insight and experience that we appreciate as we seek to effectively administer the tax law.”

IRSAC meets periodically and will submit a report to the agency in November 2014 at a public meeting. IRSAC members generally serve a three-year term with a possible one-year extension. The six new members will join 14 returning members in 2014.

The new members are:

• Timothy J. McCormally, JD, is the Director in the Washington National Tax practice of KPMG, LLP, in Washington, D.C. He has nearly 40 years’ experience as a tax attorney. Before joining KPMG, he spent 30 years on the staff of Tax Executives Institute (TEI), first as General Counsel and then as Executive Director. At TEI, his responsibilities included the overall administration of the professional association of 7,000 in-house tax professionals from around the world. He also participated in the Institute’s extensive advocacy program, contributing to comments submitted to the IRS, Treasury Department, Canada Revenue Agency, Canadian Department of Finance and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. McCormally is a contributor to numerous publications and recently co-wrote an article with Michael Dolan, a former IRS Deputy Commissioner, entitled “Knowing Which Way the Wind Blows: Best Practices for Mitigating the Risk of Tax Whistleblowing.”
• Cheri Freeh, CPA, CGMA, is the principal owner of Hutchinson, Gillahan & Freeh, PC, in Quakertown, Pa. She has over 30 years’ experience in the field of accounting for privately held businesses, non-profit organizations, local governments, estates, trusts and individuals. Her firm specializes in small businesses (most gross receipts under $1 million), mostly middle-class individuals, small estates and trusts, non-profits and overall the CPA practitioner community. She is the immediate Past President of the Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs (PICPA) and currently serves on the governing council of the AICPA. She is also a member of the Pennsylvania State Department of Community and Economic Development’s Act 32 advisory committee that deals with local earned income tax.
• Helen Karakash, CPP, has more than 20 years’ experience in taxation and is the Payroll Director for Republic Services in Phoenix, Ariz. She currently serves as the Director of a large employer with 30,000 employees and a yearly revenue exceeding $8 billion dollars. As the Payroll Director, she directs tax deposits and filings in 40 states and provides payroll expertise for writing and implementing company policies. She previously worked as a Payroll Manager for Allied Waste Industries, Energetic Solutions, and Human Resources Corporations (HRC), where she managed a staff of 10 for payroll processing for more than 200 small businesses. She is a member of the American Payroll Association (APA) and serves on the APA CPP Certification Committee. She previously served as President, Vice President and Education Coordinator of the APA.
• Robert Bader, JD, EA, is the Director of Tax Operations for the Baltimore CASH Campaign in Baltimore, Md. Bader was introduced to free tax preparation services while managing a partner program of the Baltimore CASH Campaign. In 2008, he became Director of its tax programs and now coordinates organizations throughout the Baltimore area that prepare returns for 8,000 to10,000 low-income working families. Bader is an active member of the National Community Tax Coalition (NCTC), an organization that represents Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) programs and Low Income Tax Clinics (LITCs). Bader is the Vice Chair of the Maryland Board of Individual Tax Preparers and a member of the Maryland Society of Accounting and Tax Professionals. He is a member of the Maryland bar and previously represented low-income individuals as a legal aid attorney in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. He served in the United States Peace Corps in the countries of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
• Jennifer MacMillan, EA, is the owner of Jennifer MacMillan, EA, in Santa Barbara, Calif. MacMillan has more than 25 years’ experience in taxation. She specializes in representation services, which includes audit, collections, appeals, compliance issues and individual income tax preparation and planning, and is licensed to represent taxpayers before the IRS. She has been an instructor at the National Association of Enrolled Agents (NAEA) National Tax Practice Institute for many years (teaching advanced representation skills to EAs, CPAs, and attorneys). In addition, she teaches two-hour Ethics courses for many of the California Society of Enrolled Agents (CSEAs) local chapters, giving hundreds of Enrolled Agents in-depth interpretations of Circular 230 and real-world applications that relate to the daily challenges that arise in their practices. MacMillan has written numerous articles, such as “Avoiding the Perils of Fee Predicaments.” She is a member of the National Association of Enrolled Agents and the Chair of the California Society of Enrolled Agents, Government Relations Committee.
• Ronald Aucutt, JD, has over 38 years’ experience in taxation and is a partner with McGuireWoods, LLP, in Tysons Corner, Va.  Aucutt’s specialties include corporate reorganizations, the investment tax credit, tax-exempt financing, TEFRA partnership audits and tax treatment on inventories, as well as tax-exempt organizations, estate and gift taxes and the income taxation of estates and trusts, which in time became his areas of concentration. Prior to joining McGuireWoods, LLP, he was an associate with Miller & Chevalier, where he handled tax planning matters and tax audits and appeals throughout the country. He compiled the factual background and analysis that was adopted by the Senate Finance Committee in changing the effective date of the first generation-skipping transfer (GST) tax in the Tax Reform Act of 1976 to June 12, 1976. Aucutt is a member of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and the Chair of its Washington Affairs Committee (2009-2013). He is also a member of the American Bar Association, Section of Taxation.

The 2014 IRSAC Chairman is Paul O’Connor, LLM, JD, CPA. He is Vice President, Head of U.S. Tax for EMD Millipore Corp. in Billerica, Mass. O’Connor has 32 years’ experience in taxation in the technology, software and bioscience fields. For more than two decades, he has been chief tax officer for Millipore Corporation (now EMD Millipore, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), a company engaged in bioscience research, chemical and pharmaceutical production. He is a member of Tax Executives Institute and served as the International President from 2010-2011.

For more information on IRSAC, please visit the Tax Professionals page on IRS.gov.

Related Item: IRSAC Members Deliver 2013 Public Report

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WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today announced the selection of seven new members for the Information Reporting Program Advisory Committee (IRPAC).

The new appointees will join 13 returning members. Committee members represent the taxpaying public, tax professionals, small and large businesses, the financial industry and payroll providers.

“Information reporting requirements reach into every corner of the tax code and present major implications for both the IRS and the public,” IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said. “The new IRPAC members bring a wealth of insight and experience that we are fortunate to have as we seek to effectively administer the tax law.”

The following people have been appointed to serve on the committee for three-year terms beginning in 2014:

Robert J. Birch is Director of Corporate Tax at Wellmark Inc. in Des Moines, Iowa. He has over 35 years of experience with tax information reporting. Two of the companies in Wellmark Inc.’s consolidated group are independent licensees of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association doing business in Iowa and South Dakota. Birch is a member of the Board of Directors of the Tax Executives Institute Inc. and the first president of the IOWA TEI Chapter.

Beatriz Castaneda is Director Client Reporting at Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. in San Francisco. She has 14 years of tax reporting experience at Charles Schwab. Castaneda is a member of the Financial Information Forum (FIF) Cost Basis Working Group and FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) Group. She is also a member of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Tax Compliance Committee and Cost Basis Working Group.

Ernesto S. Castro is Manager of Government Relations at Ultimate Software Group Inc. in Santa Ana, Calif. He has more than 20 years of experience working with tax information reporting with a concentration in compliance and problem resolution. Castro is a founding member of the National Association of Tax Reporting and Payroll Management.

Roseann M. Cutrone is Tax Counsel with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, in Washington, D.C. She has worked for 27 years as tax counsel with information reporting and withholding issues. Cutrone has represented clients including large domestic and foreign commercial banks, investment funds and other entities with respect to all aspects of their information reporting and withholding obligations.

Carolyn Diehl is Tax Compliance Officer and Vice President with National Financial Services, LLC, a Division of Fidelity Investments, in Jersey City, N.J. She has worked in the financial industry for more than 35 years as both a tax preparer and compliance officer for a leading financial services firm specializing in high net worth clients and as a compliance officer for a large broker/dealer organization. Diehl is a member of the SIFMA tax compliance committee and participates in dialogue on cost basis and FATCA with the Financial Information Forum (FIF).

Michael W. Gangwer is Associate Tax Advisor in the Legal Department of The Vanguard Group, Inc. in Valley Forge, Pa. He has worked at Vanguard in information reporting for more than 10 years. He currently serves as the lead technical consultant for information reporting and tax withholding for Vanguard’s retail, institutional retirement and brokerage tax reporting and cost basis departments. Gangwer is a member of the Society of Financial Service Professionals, Investment Company Institute and the Securities Institute and Financial Markets Association.

Darrell D. Granahan is Vice President, Payment at First Data Corp. in Omaha, Neb. He has worked for First Data Corp. for 17 years. First Data is an electronic payment facilitator/payment settlement entity. Granahan serves on Thomson Reuters – ONESOURCE Tax Information Reporting Advisory Board, is a member of Information Systems Audit and Control (ISACA), and the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA).

The 2014 IRPAC Chairman is Boyd Brown, Benefits Tax Counsel in the Global Tax & Trade group at Intel Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif. He has worked for more than 20 years in the compensation and benefits area. Brown serves as tax counsel supporting Human Resources, Compensation & Benefits, Payroll, Legal, HR Legal, and Compensation & Benefits Accounting. He is an adjunct faculty member with Georgetown University Law Center, teaching courses in taxation of fringe benefits and nonqualified deferred compensation.

The IRPAC was established in 1991. The committee’s purpose is to provide an organized public forum for discussion of relevant tax administration issues between IRS officials and representatives of the public.

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