My History, My Experience

I graduated from Ithaca College with an unrelated Bachelor’s degree and began working as a secretary at a small White Plains CPA firm.  The partners offered me the position of firm bookkeeper in addition to my secretarial duties.  This led to hands-on training by the firm’s experienced partners.  Several community college accounting courses later, I further explored the world of tax accounting and preparation, always guided by my mentors.  I continued to demonstrate an aptitude and to expand my comprehension of accounting principles and the tax code.

When I left the firm in 2000, I already had several years experience in tax preparation.  I returned each tax season part-time and on an as-needed basis for special projects through early 2004. 

My practice began in late 2001 and has grown each year.  I successfully passed the IRS Special Enrollment Examination to earn my EA credentials on my initial attempt.  I also aid a Poughkeepsie-based CPA firm part-time, an association which began in early 2006 and continues today.

My tax preparation experience includes high net-worth individuals, businesses, such as partnerships, corporations, and LLCs and LLPs, as well as estates and trusts.  I am familiar with sole proprietorships (Schedule C—self-employed), rental properties, and publicly traded partnerships in addition to many other tax issues.  I have also prepared gift tax returns and fiduciary court accountings.  My experience further includes preparing personal returns when a taxpayer has died during the tax period.  Payroll calculations, payroll tax return preparation, and sales tax return preparation are also among my skills.

Current clients include individuals, couples and families, some of whom have sole proprietorships, rental properties, K-1 interests, and securities activity, as well as diverse business clients, like a tutoring service, an LLC with catalog/internet and wholesale operations, a laundromat, a real estate LLC, a real estate agent LLP, as well as a not-for-profit foundation and a legal firm LLP, among others.  Most clients are based in New York, but others are as far west as California and as far south as North Carolina.

I’m currently taking prerequisite accounting courses in hopes of pursuing my graduate degree in Accounting, beginning in 2008.  I’ve also completed two-thirds of the NAEA National Tax Practice Institute’s three-level program which focuses solely on taxpayer representation issues.

Professionally, I’m a member of the National Association of Enrolled Agents (NAEA), the New York State Society of Enrolled Agents (NYSSEA), and a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor.  I’m currently serving as the Treasurer of the Lower Hudson Valley Chapter of the NYSSEA and as a planning committee member for the 2008 NAEA National Tax Practice Institute, to be held in Baltimore next August.  I’m also a proud member of the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Personally, my husband, Eric and I are the parents of two boys and have lived in Poughquag since 1995.