Maximizing the ENGAGE experience: A co-chair’s guidance

Marty Finn, CPA/PFS, J.D., LL.M., is an ENGAGE co-chair, focusing on tax, personal financial planning, and estate planning topics for the event, which begins June 3. Finn got his start on conference committees after meeting Sid Kess, a legendary tax practitioner and mentor who died in September at age 97.

The advice of Kess has stuck with Finn, and Finn believes that an emphasis on top-notch speakers and topics is what has made ENGAGE and its predecessor events valuable to CPAs for years.

Resources:

• ENGAGE registration information and agenda
• A remembrance of Sid Kess, by Andrea Millar, CPA/PFS
• “Summing Up Sid” podcast episode from September
• Longtime AICPA CEO Barry Melancon announces his retirement

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• First, a word on the news of the week: AICPA CEO Barry Melancon announces plan to retire.
• Melancon is scheduled to be at ENGAGE, a signature AICPA event that Finn looks forward to each year.
• Finn’s explanation of the Sid Kess Rule.
• The topics that are expected to be addressed in a panel discussion that Finn will moderate.
• The importance of, and timeline for, the sunset of several key provisions of the legislation known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
• Why Finn says that the opportunities for tax-focused CPAs in the area of advisory services will continue to grow.
• One last bit of Kess advice for getting the most out of conference attendance.

Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:

— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.

Transcript

Neil Amato: Hello, Journal of Accountancy podcast listeners. This is Neil Amato with the JofA. Our main interview, a lookahead to ENGAGE with a co-chair of the event, is coming up in just a bit. But first, we’re going to discuss some important news.

If you missed the announcement Wednesday, Barry Melancon, the AICPA & CIMA CEO, announced his retirement, effective at the end of the year. Melancon has been the CEO of the AICPA since 1995. He is also CEO of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, created with CIMA in 2017. And, he has taken the lead on numerous profession initiatives.

Our news story is posted on the JofA‘s site, and it will be linked in the show notes for the episode. Again, Barry Melancon on Wednesday announced his retirement at AICPA Council. A search committee has been set up to pick his successor.

Here’s a clip from a recent interview, in which Melancon looks back on how he approached his role over the years related to the talent in the profession.

Barry Melancon: What my belief system in this role was that the profession was critically important to the business world and the public. And that the talent of the men and women in this profession is extraordinary. And we had to be an organization that helped to unleash that, so that the profession could have even more impact.

That, I think, if you look back on those 30 years, that is the story. I think that is the track record, that the importance of the trust factor of our profession, the importance of the skillset of the people in our profession — we have been about creating an environment in which people can deploy that knowledge and that capability in a broader set of ways than the profession was traditionally defined. And I think the men and women in our profession have stepped up to that. And as a result, I think the profession has been significantly successful in achieving that outcome to be more important to society.

Amato: Again, that was Barry Melancon. The JofA will have more coverage of this story in the coming months, and it’s a topic that obviously will be much discussed at ENGAGE, which is coming up soon. In fact, it was ENGAGE that was the originally planned focus for this episode. The event starts June 3 at Aria in Las Vegas. Here’s my conversation with Marty Finn, a CPA who is an ENGAGE co-chair, focusing on personal financial planning, estate planning, and tax topics. I asked Marty about what he thinks brings back attendees every year to the conference and what he looks forward to most about returning to ENGAGE.

Marty Finn: First of all, thanks for having me on, Neil. ENGAGE is such a terrific conference. I mean, it really is the highlight, I think, of the AICPA’s continuing education programs. But for me, it is ENGAGE and it was the conferences I was involved with prior to that, the Tax Strategies [for the High-Income Individual] Conference. It’s always been about the speakers. We bring together and continue to bring together every year the country’s best speakers on tax, estate planning, personal financial planning, the individual conferences I’m most involved with as an ENGAGE chair, but it really is the speakers. These folks are top-notch, they are the most knowledgeable people in their topics, they’re terrific to listen to, and they do what we ask them.

We have — and we’ll a lot talk more about him in a minute — but we call it in our programs the Sid Kess Rule. We want them to get folks tidbits, information, planning tidbits that they can go back to their offices and use with their clients, and that’s what they do. It’s just so much information folks will get from this conference that they’ll be able to go back and make money with — give [advice] to their clients and plan with their clients.

Neil Amato: You’ve mentioned Sid Kess. For this episode, in the show notes, we will post the previous podcast discussion that included you, Marty, and other people talking about Sid Kess. He passed away in the fall. He was a legend in this field. Can you tell me just a little bit more about Sid so that listeners who maybe don’t know who he is learn a little more about him?

Marty Finn: Sure. No. 1, I cannot imagine anybody doesn’t know who Sid Kess is. Everybody, all practitioners, seem to have grown up with Sid Kess teaching them about tax and other things. But yes, Sid was great. Sid, No. 1, was a friend. He brought me along with respect to all these AICPA programs and taught me so many things.

But No. 1 on the list was that he was a good friend. But he was a mentor to so many people including myself on planning, tax issues. And for me, just being part of a conference like this and help plan a conference, he was great to learn from. He just was always — up to the end — always had ideas of what we could do different, how we could make the conference better. He just was a terrific guy, and he was there for CPAs across the country for so many years.

I had so many people come up to me during every one of these conferences and say, “Where’s Sid? Have you seen Sid? Is he here?” Unfortunately, he hadn’t been coming the last couple of years, but they still want to talk Sid about what he was doing. He was, again, not only their mentor and teacher, but for so many people, he was a friend.

Neil Amato: In addition to your role as co-chair, you’re also a presenter. You’re part of a panel discussion. The title of that panel is “Taxation Trailblazers: Unveiling the Best Tax, Personal Financial Planning, and Estate Planning Strategies for 2024 and Beyond.” That obviously hits on a lot of areas of interests for you and for our listeners. What’s a quick preview of that session?

Marty Finn: I’m moderating. I’m going to let the three speakers I have give the strategies. But it’s intended, Neil, to be a program that wraps it up at the end of the conference. You know, what I just said about the Sid Kess Rule — people giving [the attendees] tidbits, things that they can go back to their offices and use in their practice. It’s trying to wrap that whole thing up into a bundle at the end of the conference.

We’re going to have somebody from the Tax Strategies Conference, from the Personal Financial Planning Conference, from the Estate Planning Conference that can talk about the things that folks need to be thinking about over the course, at least, in the next couple of years. We got crazy stuff going on. We got an election going to happen in November. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that? It’s all over the news.

Neil Amato: First I’ve heard of it actually.

Marty Finn: Exactly. So, that’s going to happen. That can impact planning going forward. Just the end of some of the provisions that were in the [legislation known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] that came out several years ago — they’re going to go away at the end of 2025. We’ve got to plan for that, and that’s coming up quick now.

We’re going to talk about all of those planning strategies that people need to be thinking about with their clients over the course, in the tax, the personal financial planning, estate planning areas that they really need to be talking to your clients about over the course of the next year and a half, given all these changes going on.

Neil Amato: Right. Now, you mentioned when you said some of the specialty areas of the speakers, the panelists, and you said from this conference, that conference, another conference. That’s what ENGAGE is, is that it’s an amalgam of a bunch of conferences that used to be independent and separate, and now they’re all together in the same spot, the same venue.

I was wondering if you could reflect some on your years coming to this event. It’s now named ENGAGE. But you were there before it was named ENGAGE. One, approximately how many years ago was it, and can you tell me some about maybe your first exposure to this event?

Marty Finn: Sure. I grew up with this thing with the Tax Strategies Conference, and that was, boy, 20-plus years ago that Sid asked me to speak at it. Then, subsequently after a year or so, he said, “Hey, would you be interested in being part of the planning committee for Tax Strategies?” Then, after a few more years, I chaired that conference, and then now it’s ENGAGE.

That’s a great idea on behalf of the AICPA to say, hey, we have all these different conferences. They are related in some respects. Let’s bring them under one umbrella. We call it ENGAGE, and people can come to this big conference. And what’s really cool about it is folks that may have just gone to Tax Strategies in the past now can also take advantage of some of this stuff going on in the Estate Planning Conference and in the Personal Financial Planning Conferences, and the other conferences going on. Yeah, so, great idea to pull this whole thing together, and it’s great to have been a part of it from the beginning with Tax Strategies and now see it as part of this [event], which people really are enjoying the ability to cross over the different conference topics.

Neil Amato: You mentioned some of the sunsetting of the TCJA provisions, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, I guess, in 2025. On that topic, tax advisory services is an area that’s been around, but it’s still growing and there’s room for growth. What does the future look like for tax practitioners looking to expand their offerings in advisory services?

Marty Finn: I think it’s great. As long as we have a government that continually changes the tax laws, I know advisers get a little frustrated with the constant change. I find it as just great for business that they constantly change the rules. But, talk about changing the rules, we’ve got to make sure our clients know what to do with these new rules, or proposed new rules, and plan for them.

There’s always going to be tax advisory services. That’s why we, I think — part of the AICPA strategy, at least with respect to these three topics — tax, personal financial planning, estate planning — they are so interconnected in what we’re talking about with our clients. And to the extent there’s changes in one area, it’s probably going to impact the clients in another area. You really do need to have in your planning with your clients, you’ve got to have an understanding of all three of those topic areas. Bringing them together under one conference umbrella is just perfect for folks to get a little bit on all those topics in one conference.

Neil Amato: Exactly. They can pick up those tidbits. They can also learn a little bit about a keynote speaker’s inspirational story. They can pick up career advice, technology. There’s a lot to learn, a lot to take from ENGAGE. We’ll be sure to put also an online registration link in the show notes for the episode. Marty, anything else you’d like to say about ENGAGE in closing as we’re now a few weeks from the conference?

Finn: Yeah, again, the most important thing for me has always been the speakers as part of this. But I will mention also that not only do we have great speakers, great topics, timely topics on everything and speakers are going to tell you, here’s what you need to be talking to your clients about.

We’ve got a room or two rooms full of exhibitors that are there, and we constantly, again — at Sid’s urging — we constantly tell folks, our attendees, hey, these exhibitors are part of the conference experience. You need to go out and talk to them. They’ve got information for you that, again, will help you in your practice and planning and providing services to your clients. A tremendous amount of information, which is just another value added for being at this conference.

Neil Amato: Marty Finn, thank you very much.

Marty Finn: Neil, I appreciate being here with you.