Alaska State Board of Accountancy Report
Alaska State Board of Accountancy Report
Rebecca Martin, CPA Board Liaison
The State Board of Accountancy met on November 7-8, 2013 in Anchorage and February 3-4, 2014 in Juneau. The agendas for both meetings were relatively light so I have combined items of interest for both meetings in one article.
I would like to thank Kathleen Thompson, CPA from Fairbanks for her service on our State Board since October 16, 2008. During her 2 terms, she was instrumental in assisting Cori and the Board with wrapping up the outstanding cases related to the CPE audits and disciplinary actions. She served us with diligence, respect, and concern for our profession while protecting the public. Please thank her the next time you see her.
A new Statutes and Regulations Publication for Public Accountancy was updated as of December 2013, and is available online or you can contact Cori Hondolero, Executive Administrator for the State of Alaska CPA Board, (information below) for a paper copy.
Most Alaskan CPAs and their firms renewed their license in December. As of 1/21/2014, there are 192 Alaskan CPAs and 7 firms, who have not renewed. If you would like to renew and haven’t done so, you will need to complete the paper renewal form. We suggest if you plan to renew late, contacting Cori immediately to indicate your intent to renew and work with her to resolve any issues you may be having with your renewal. As a reminder, our statutes and regulations state that if you haven’t renewed, you are no longer allowed to practice as a CPA as your license lapsed on 12/31/2013. This is also true for any firms, which did not renew by 12/31/2013.
The next State Board of Accountancy meeting will be held in Anchorage on May 1-2, 2014, when the Board will be joined by a new CPA board member yet to be appointed. Mark you calendar for the Fairbanks meeting on August 7-8, 2014. The public is welcome.
New CPAs and CPA firms who were approved by the Board and licensed/permitted in November:
New CPAs:
Douglas Charley Jr
Aurelie Denis
Scott Edwards
Nargiz Hasanova
Shelia Hill
Junrong Huang
Carmen Jackson
Pelagia Kaza
Krishnan Sharmila
Emin Mammadov
Gunel Mammadov
Alyssa Neubauer
Shuske Takeuchi
Xinghua Wang
Aizhan Zainelova
Hakan Ozacar
Stanislav Mishin
Nihad Azizli
Jessica Nutley
Petr Vasek
Hongmei Li
Akiyo Takashima
Cynthia Brandt
John Clonan
New In State Firms:
WaineBrandt, LLC
Alpine Accounting, LLC
Cindy Shilling, CPA PC
John W Clonan, Jr., CPA PC
New Out of State Firms:
Caldwell and Company
Novogradac & Company LLP
Reinstated CPAs:
Jeffrey Wood
Michael Weber
Many of you may not have realized that, as part of your renewal, you were required again this year to send in your Alaska Specific Ethics CPE certificate by January 15th. For those of you who missed this, you probably already received a letter from Cori Hondolero. If you haven’t already, please deliver your Alaska Specific Ethics CPE certificate to her as soon as possible. She will accept these via fax, email/pdf, or mail.
Cori also sent out letters to CPAs, who were randomly selected for a full CPE audit. If you were selected for a full CPE audit and also forgot to mail in your Alaska Specific Ethics CPE certificate, please note that you would not have received the letter discussed above since you will be including the Ethics certificate in your full CPE audit response. Unfortunately for those of us dealing with tax season, the State of Alaska mandates the due dates in these letters and your response is due by March 7, 2014.
Please note that if you are under a mandatory CPE audit as a requirement of a consent agreement, you are required to provide your CPE records for Board approval before you may renew your license.
The Board provided some clarification on whether or not a sole proprietor needs a firm license. As many of you probably understood, as long as you are using your own name for the name of your business, i.e. John Doe, CPA, and remain a sole proprietorship as your State recognized legal entity, then a firm license is not required. However, the Board indicated that if you use a “firm-type” name, such as “Accountants ‘R Us” and/or you designate yourself as a different legal entity, even as a single member LLC, you now need both your CPA license and a firm license. For example, if you take your sole proprietorship and change the legal designation with the State to a single member LLC and your name is now “John Doe, CPA, LLC,” you also need a firm license. If you have any questions on this clarification, please email Cori (contact information at end of article) and she will forward your questions to the Board.
HB 187 will be making its way through the legislature this session. This bill affects all licensing boards. The State CPA Board and the AKCPA support this bill.
The following list represents the latest round of disciplinary actions and consent agreements approved by the Board. Although there may be a few remaining CPE audits, the Board has mostly cleared these older CPE audits that began two years ago as of the February meeting. This report only includes actions completed at the November 2013 meeting. Actions completed at the February 2014 meeting will listed in the next report.
The agreements are posted as a matter of public record. The investigations summaries may not be current (they are not under the management of the Board), but may be viewed nonetheless via the following link:
http://commerce.state.ak.us/occ/pub/CPA_Investigations_Summary.pdf.
If the agreements posted online are not current, additional information regarding any consent agreement considered part of the public record may be obtained through the Executive Administrator. Her contact information is:
Cori Hondolero, Executive Administrator
Atwood Building
550 West 7th Avenue, Ste. 1500
Anchorage, AK 99501-3567
The following individuals (in no particular order) received consent agreements with the following terms unless otherwise noted. All of the following individuals were lacking the 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics. Terms of these Consent Agreements were:
- reprimanded,
- fined $3,800 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $1,300),
- required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and
- renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods.
Guowei Yin, Case No. 2012-001552, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Ronald Alban, Case No. 2012-001548, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Wael Mansour El Tayeb, Case No. 2012-001542, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Barry S Moring, Case No. 2012-001134, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Yasuhiro Nakajima, Case No. 2012-001560, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Benjamin M Rolfs, Case No. 2012-001136, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Ran Xu, Case No. 2012-001553, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Karl R Swanson, Case No. 2012-001138, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Lynne H Gummo, Case No. 2012-001018, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Paul Moyes, Case No. 2012-001547, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Natalia Stanfield, Case No. 2012-001563, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Roberto Resende, Case No. 2012-001555, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Minjie Tang, Case No. 2013-001838, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Shiming Chen, Case No. 2012-001550, lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics
Other disciplinary actions (in no particular order) by the State Board:
Richard M Carlson, Case No. 2012-001016, voluntary surrender of CPA license
Laura A Sullivan, Case No. 2012-001566, voluntary surrender of CPA license
Glen M Nicolai, Case No. 2012-001566, voluntary surrender of CPA license
Gordon H James, Case No. 2012-000576, voluntary surrender of CPA license
Dena S Mitchell, Case No. 2012-001586, voluntary surrender of CPA license
Lois A Hicks, Case No. 2012-001544, license revoked due to non-response to CPE audit, reinstatement may be available, if applied for within one year of Default Order, pay reinstatement fees and $500 fine, and consent to be subject to mandatory CPE audits for the next 2 license renewal periods
Deborah Kalakis, Case No. 2013-001736, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 20 hour per year and 88 hours per cycle minimums before renewal, and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $5,000 with $3,700 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $1,300), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
John H Lawlor, Case No. 2012-001587 and OAH No. 13-1076-CPA, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 20 hour per year minimum during 1st year of cycle and 88 hours minimum for 2 year cycle before renewal, and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $5,000 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $2,500), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
Markku Sorvoja, Case No. 2012-001562, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 20 hour per year minimum during 2nd year of cycle and 88 hours minimum for 2 year cycle before renewal, and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $5,000 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $2,500), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
Janiese L Stevens, Case No. 2012-001565, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 80 hours minimum for 2 year cycle before renewal and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $3,800 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $1,300), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
Carolann M Stroup, Case No. 2012-001135, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 20 hour per year minimum during 2nd year of cycle and 88 hours minimum for 2 year cycle before renewal, and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $5,000 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $2,500), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
Zouhair Tahri, Case No. 2012-001010, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 80 hours minimum for 2 year cycle before renewal and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $4,200 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $1,700), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
Koji Urano, Case No. 2012-001567, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 20 hour per year minimum and 88 hours minimum for 2 year cycle before renewal, and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $3,800 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $1,300), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
Sharon K White, Case No. 2012-000574, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 20 hour per year and 88 hours per cycle minimums before renewal, and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $5,000 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $2,500), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
Priscilla J Horner, Case No. 2012-001021, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 80 hours minimum for 2 year cycle before renewal and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $5,000 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $2,500), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
Susanne R Skaggs, Case No. 2012-001811, failing to meet the CPE requirements of 20 hour per year minimum during 1st year of cycle and 88 hours minimum for 2 year cycle before renewal, and lacking 4 hours of required Alaska specific ethics; reprimanded, fined $3,800 with $2,500 suspended (to pay or paid fine of $1,300), required to take Alaska specific ethics course for previous cycle and following cycles, and renewal application subject to mandatory audit for the next 2 license renewal periods
