AICPA Honors Professionals with Awards in Area of Taxation

Lisa C. Germano, CPA, CGMA has been named the 2015 recipient of the Arthur J. Dixon Memorial Award, the highest honor bestowed by the accounting profession in the area of taxation. The award, given by the Tax Division of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), was presented today at the AICPA’s Fall Tax Division Meeting in Washington, D.C. by Eddie Adkins, a partner at Grant Thornton in Washington, D.C.

Jonathan Horn, CPA, CGMA received the AICPA Tax Division’s Distinguished Service Award for his extraordinary contributions to the work of the Tax Division over the past year.

Germano is president and general counsel of Actuarial Benefits & Design Company, which she co-founded in 1989. The company, based in Midlothian, Va., helps business owners assess retirement needs for themselves and their employees, as well as to set up retirement plans and to ensure the plans comply with federal disclosure and reporting requirements.

Horn is the immediate past chair of the AICPA Individual and Self-Employed Technical Resource Panel, where he served five years as a member of the panel and two years as its chair. He speaks regularly at national professional events and is frequently quoted in the national media.

Germano, a nationally-recognized expert on pensions and other employee benefits, was appointed to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Information Reporting Program Advisory Committee by then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and has written numerous retirement planning articles relating to pension law and its administration. She is often quoted in local and national media outlets and is a frequent speaker at national conferences and professional organizations. Germano received the Hammer Award from Vice President Al Gore for her outstanding regulatory work with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.

Germano’s dedicated volunteer service to the AICPA spans more than 25 years. She has served as a member of the AICPA’s Governing Council, on the AICPA Board of Directors, Tax Executive Committee, Financial Literacy Commission and multiple task forces and committees, including the 401(k) Practice Guides Task Force and the Comparability Cross-Testing Task Force. Notably, she has chaired the AICPA Member Retirement Committee and the Institute’s Employee Benefits Taxation Committee and then its Technical Resource Panel, the Mandatory Withholding Rules Practice Guide Task Force and the Employee Benefits Taxation Practice Guide Task Force. She has co-chaired and been a faculty member of the AICPA National Employee Benefit Plans Conference Committee for many years.

She currently chairs the Board of the Virginia Society of CPAs and has served multiple years on the Society’s board of directors and Educational Foundation, as well as on other committees and task forces, including the Nominations Committee and the Employee Benefits Conference and Financial Fitness Task Forces.

In her community, Germano has been active with such groups as the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and is a co-founder of both the Joan Grossmann Fegely Foundation for Ovarian Cancer, Education & Research and Rapids Baseball Incorporated, a nonprofit dedicated to youth leadership and development.

The AICPA’s annual award is in honor of Arthur J. Dixon, a CPA who had an outstanding record of service to the tax profession and to the Institute’s Tax Division. Dixon was chairman of the AICPA’s Tax Executive Committee from 1977 to 1980 and posthumously won the first award named in his honor. The award was established after his death in 1981 to honor outstanding CPAs in the area of taxes.