Thirteen new members have been named to the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council, a public forum for IRS officials and representatives of the public to discuss issues in tax administration.
Among the accountants and tax practitioners appointed to three-year terms beginning this month were:
- Jeremiah Coder, a tax director at Big Four firm PwC, has 15 years of tax expertise on domestic, international and state tax policy issues spanning different industries, client types, issues and countries.
- Charles Parr, a partner at ABIP CPAs, has more than 40 years of tax and audit experience with small to large publicly and privately held companies, both in private practice and with two of the Big Four.
- Luis Parra, CEO of Key Accounting and Tax Services, has 20 years of experience in tax audit representation, accounting, taxes, budget planning for diverse individuals and business and nonprofit organizations.
- Kathryn Tracy, managing partner at Kat & Bud Enterprises, has owned and operated an accounting and income tax firm since 1992. She prepares over 1,600 returns annually for individuals, corporations, partnerships, non-profit organizations, and estates and trusts as well as information reporting returns. She is a former IRS revenue agent and works with the IRS local Taxpayer Advocate Service office.
- Steve Klitzner, an attorney, has more than 20 years of experience representing taxpayers before the IRS. A frequent speaker on tax, he also teaches continuing education courses to CPAs, EAs and attorneys.
- Seth Poloner, executive director/global head of the operational tax advisory group at Morgan Stanley, has 16 years of experience as a tax attorney at both a large international law firm and a major global financial services firm.
- Dawn Rhea, legal officer at Evergreen Financing Management/Hampstead Ventures Inc., has a practice area focusing on complex legal and tax issues arising in the context of financing, asset and equity acquisitions and mergers, and was previously a national tax director with Moss Adams.
- Wendy Walker is a solution principal at Sovos, a global tax software company. She previously worked at J.P. Morgan Chase, where she led the team responsible for the implementation of operational policies and processes for W-8 collection and validation in corporate procurement, among other tax-related duties.
- Katrina Welch has more than 25 years of tax, management and strategic decision-making experience. Most recently, she worked for Ecolab, where she led a team of tax professionals with strategic and operational responsibility for planning, tax provision, compliance and controversy, as well as global M&A.
Also named to the committee were:
- Jodi Kessler, assistant director of tax at MIT, who has 13 years of experience in higher education focusing on all aspects of taxation;
- Phil Poirier, a VITA volunteer whose work focuses on finding ways to improve the tax and financial lives of low- and moderate-income Americans;
- Paul Sterbenz, director of information reporting at Fifth Third Bank, who manages consultation and support for the production and filing of information reports and is responsible for managing the bank’s FBAR filings and the bank’s relationship with IRS and other tax authorities; and,
- Sam Cohen, government affairs/legal officer for the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians.
The 2021 IRSAC chair is Ben Deneka, program manager with the Tax Institute at H&R Block.
