10:03 Meeting called to order by our host Mitch Freedman

10:05 Introductions

Andy Blackman – practices in Manhattan – focuses on business management mostly dealing with entertainment clients. Mostly a tax practice and planning.

 John Levy – Walnut Creek outside of Oakland – serves on CALCPA board as vice-president. Small firm and does A&A teaching for the Foundation.

 John Hoag – Westwood Village – small firm with 2 employees

 Tom Tone – 2 CPA 2 employee firm – general accounting, tax and auditing.

 Susan Bradley – Fresno – 12 person firm – traditional practice and mostly litigation consulting

 Harold Katz – Katz, Fram & Co., located in West Los Angeles, CA. A 16 person
firm with 7 CPAs, including Harold and his partner Arnold I. Fram. The firms
activities include – estates and trusts, business management and a general
accounting practice, with an emphasis in taxation. Harold is currently a
member of both the Los Angeles Business Managers and Litigation Committees.
Harold has also been a citizen activist for 32 years, primarily in the area
of transpiration and land planning.

 Pamela Thompson – started in public accounting but now does practice management and marketing for other CPA firms.

 Mitch Freedman – very involved with AICPA and CALCPA and other non-profit orgs. Small practice, sole owner with 7 employees. Provides entertainment business management and tax work. Also has an investment advisory firm.

 Dan Morris – started at a Big 8 firm and is now with a 10-person 3-partner firm in San Jose. Serves CALCPA on the local and state level.

 Kendall Wheeler – started with Moore Grider & Company – 30 person and 10 partner firm in Fresno and has been there for 14 years. Serves CALCPA as a council member.

10:35 Selection of chair

Mitch Freedman was selected as chair and Kendall Wheeler was selected as secretary to take minutes.

10:37 The agenda was approved and the meeting began

1)      Can the AICPA survive as a viable voice for the profession or should an alternative organization be considered?

      Since Dale Spradling was not able to attend, his whitepaper was admitted into the     minutes as his comments on the day and open for discussion.

John Levy mentioned that a new trade organization would probably not be a viable solution for the problems we feel are going on with the AICPA. If the rule-setting authority is taken away from the AICPA then that new trade organization might possibly be an option.

John Hoag discussed that it might not be a bad idea for a separate organization because the AICPA has not built itself over the years to speak for the masses. John also asked the group, “Where do we want to be?”

Pamela Thompson discussed the role of the AICPA in implementing our plan and the possibility of accomplishing our objectives without having to involve the AICPA.  Possibly state societies and other accounting organizations would be the best place to turn for support of our profession.

John Levy asked us to consider what is wrong with the AICPA and what do we want them to do. There are many anti-AICPA organizations.

Susan Bradley said she wants an organization that gets behind the CPA and asks other CPAs was they want rather than telling us what we need.

John Levy wants an organization that focuses on member-driven issues and the

license (i.e. brand, profession)

Harold Katz said that he was upset because we weren’t being heard and acknowledged by the AICPA.  Our opinions were not shared with the other members of the AICPA.

Dan Morris said that we have 350,000 members. Many of them are members because of the insurance program. But he thinks the institute is trying to bring out things that the members want based upon what they are being told by the members.

John Levy said that as leaders of NP organizations you are expected to lead and that there are rewards but also a chance that you might be looked on badly if a particular idea fails.

Mitch feels that there has been an aggregation of mistakes. He feels the volunteer leadership has not expressed itself sufficiently to possibly stop some of the things that are going on.

Kendall Wheeler mentioned that there are many things the AICPA does that flat-out don’t work and the AICPA management will not admit to failure of some programs.

John Hoag feels we are on the cusp of the old and the new. And things have changed over the years as to the direction of the services CPAs offer to their clients. Traditional services are not the revenue-generating activities they used to. He feels the AICPA does not fit the new model of the new CPA that offers other things besides traditional accounting services. Feels there needs to be grass-root member participation and more use of technology in the things that go on at the AICPA level (i.e. voting, etc)

Pamela Thompson feels AICPA members need to be consulted about new services that the AICPA offers.

Kendall Wheeler thinks that the AICPA should better utilize the technology that is out there.

There was a discussion about how the AICPA is run and how representatives are voted in at which Mitch Freeman called for a point of order. He mentioned that there is not a strong voice here present to create another organization.

Pamela suggested that we have a plan A and a plan B. If Plan A is to work with the AICPA for reform we should have a Plan B which could be to work with other CPA organizations.

John Levy feels we need to salvage the AICPA for its members. But if they fail to set the standards for its members then we must have other options. He wants us to commit to “fixing” the AICPA rather than starting a new organization.

Dan Morris said that we need to get reps from our group to meet with Barry and higher ups many times per year to maybe communicate some of our needs and wants that we have heard from the membership.

AICPA Want List (See attached) was started.

Harold Katz feels that we should not attack but rather we should work with the current leadership, we should maintain a positive agenda.

We then discussed what role we wanted the AICPA to take in serving small practitioners. Possibly the AICPA needs to be restructured.

12:00 Lunch Break

12:50 Discussion continued – We discussed the way the AICPA gets members on their board and also the viability of the next chair to be effective in his leadership due to the current nature of the accounting profession.

A discussion ensued on how we communicate these ideas with both the AICPA Leadership (Barry, board, council) and the current members.

Show this with XYZTALK subscribers and then present these items to state societies.

We are willing to consider legal avenues to bring about our needs and goals.

John Levy made a proposal of sending this information to the public by sending it to:

1)      XYZCaucus members for review and clarification

2)      XYZTalk listserve members

3)      State Society president/chair & ED

4)      Other accounting organizations

5)      Directly to AICPA chair and Barry M

A discussion then came up regarding the way the process of getting members into the AICPA council. John Levy wants to put the decision of council members into the hands of membership rather than just one person (chair/president).

2:00 pm – We started a discussion of refining each one of the points on the AICPA want list and proceeded to clean it up.

4:00 pm Meeting adjourned