Ready for Summer

By Melody Thornton, CPA

We had a wonderful turnout at our Chapter Installation event May 11. It was a beautiful and fun evening at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay. We recognized our past presidents whose invaluable participation continues to play an important role in the professional growth of our chapter. Also, I had the pleasure of presenting scholarships to a deserving group of recipients—Brian Szuberla, Karryn Kawashima, Joy Leon, Tingting Li, Patricia Langowski, Kenneth White, Catherine Girard, Michael Steele, Michelle Bourgeot, Andraya Noreuil, Bradlee Baldwin, Henry Wang and Anita Ambegaokar—who represent SDSU, USD, CSUSM, UCSD Extension and Mira Costa Community College. I’m extremely proud of our chapter’s commitment to the education of the next generation of CPAs. These students substantiate my belief that our profession has a bright future. I encourage you to continue your generous support of our scholarship fund.

Serving on the board this year with me is Nai Hwang as first vice president, Paul Zimmer as secretary, Conor Donnelley as treasurer, Joe Forlenza as past president and Joan Alleckson, Laura Bennett, Beth Smiley and John Stremlau as directors. The chapter is also fortunate to have the expertise of our numerous interest group chairs.

As I write this, we just passed the tax deadline for calendar year tax-exempt organizations (NFPs). In the last few years, California tax-exempt organizations have faced considerable scrutiny by the IRS and the California Attorney General. The reporting forms for NFPs have changed considerably to provide greater transparency and improve governance of the organizations. While I believe that the changes are good, additional complexity has been added to an already complex part of the tax code. Before you answer NFP questions, I encourage you to review how the rules have changed before giving a response. Check out some of the excellent programs on these topics offered by the Education Foundation.

The first session of the CalCPA Emerging Leaders Certificate Program was held May 14. I heard from a participant that the second hour of the program facilitated by Carisa Wisniewski, managing partner of the San Diego office of Moss Adams, was the best part of the session. This program individually benefits the participants and develops future chapter leaders.

Please mark your calendar for the CalCPA Annual Meeting and Council meeting June 24–25 at Disneyland! All members are welcome to attend the annual meeting. Also, please be sure to join me, and the rest of the chapter leadership, at our Ready-for-Summer Networking Reception June 2 at the Dana on Mission Bay. You can always check the chapter calendar for our schedule of events. I look forward to seeing you often throughout the course of the year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 12:58 pm and is filed under President's Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.