South Central Chapter Annual Tax Conference

Harvey Danowitz, CPA
Accountant
Barbush Hoffman Short LLC

Harvey Danowitz, CPA, with Barbush Hoffman Short LLC of Camp Hill, Pa., is a graduate of The University of Toledo (B.B.A.). He is a member of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. He is past Chairman for the Pennsylvania State Tax Conference for the PICPA and continues to lecture at this conference. He also serves the PICPA as a member of the State Taxation Committee, Multistate Tax Conference Committee, Legislation Committee, and the Advisory Committee to the Department of Revenue. He lectures frequently for state and regional organizations.

Nov 2018

Robert Freedenberg, JD
Senior Associate
SkarlatosZonarich LLC

Robert Freedenberg concentrates his practice in federal, state and local tax planning and tax appeal matters.  He has litigated tax appeals before administrative agencies and courts in Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana.  Mr. Freedenberg provides counsel to businesses and individual clients on income, sales, assessment, realty transfer, inheritance, gift and estate taxes.

Before joining SkarlatosZonarich, Mr. Freedenberg served as Deputy Secretary for Taxation with the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue, providing executive oversight to bureaus processing corporation tax reports, sales and use tax returns, personal income tax returns, inheritance tax returns and motor fuel tax reports.  During his tenure with the Department, he also coordinated tax credit and tax-related programs with the Internal Revenue Service and the Commonwealth Departments of Community and Economic Development, Treasury, and the Auditor General.  Rob has presented at regional seminars with the Pennsylvania Bar Association, Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Tax Executives Institute, and Council on State Taxation.

Mr. Freedenberg previously worked for the Internal Revenue Service in both the Examination Division and the Appeals Division, and for AMP Incorporated (now Tyco Electronics Corporation) in its Tax Department.  He recently served the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania as law clerk to Chief Justice Thomas G. Saylor.

Bar and Court Admissions
• Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Supreme Court of Colorado
• U.S. Tax Court
• U.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania
• U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Education
• Villanova University School of Law, LL.M. in Taxation
• Temple University School of Law, J.D.
• Temple University, B.B.A. in Accounting

Associations
• Pennsylvania Bar Association Tax Section, former Vice Chair
• Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry Tax Committee, former member
• Harrisburg Regional Chamber Tax Committee, former member

Nov 2016

John J. Kaschak, CPA, CISA, GGAP, CGFM
Deputy Secretary for Taxation
Pennsylvania Department of Revenue

John is the Deputy Secretary for Taxation, Pennsylvania Department of Revenue. As Deputy Secretary for Taxation, John is responsible for managing the Bureaus of Corporation Taxes, Motor and Alternative Fuel Taxes, Individual Taxes, and Business Trust Fund Taxes, and also the operations of the Taxpayer Services and Information Center and Voluntary Disclosure Program. He also directs the review of corporation tax reports, motor fuel reports, personal income tax returns, inheritance tax returns, realty transfer tax documents, Property Tax/Rent Rebate claims, sales tax returns, and employer tax returns.

Previous to his current position, John was the Director of the Pennsylvania Office of Budget, Office of Comptroller Operations, Bureau of Audits. The Bureau of Audits is the primary internal audit function within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and is responsible for conducting performance audits of Commonwealth’s agencies and their subrecipients, providing systems development implementation guidance, conducting various desk reviews including those of subrecipient single audit reports, and assisting the Commonwealth’s independent auditors with financial statement and single audit procedures. Immediately preceding his role in the Office of the Budget, John was employed by the Pennsylvania Department of the Auditor General.

Before his dozen years of public service, John spent over four years in the public accounting profession, conducting financial statement and single audits of a variety of state and local government entities in both the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of Maryland. The majority of John’s public accounting experience was spent with Ernst & Young LLP.

John holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration-Accounting from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He is a Certified Public Accountant, Chartered Global Management Accountant, Certified Information Systems Auditor, Certified Government Auditing Professional, and Certified Government Financial Manager.

John serves on the US Comptroller General, Government Accountability Office, Green Book Advisory Committee. He is currently serving as a member of the American Institute of Public Accountants’ (AICPA) Government Performance and Accountability Committee (GPAC). He is a member of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (PICPA) Council, as well as their Legislative and Local Government Committees, and was named to the 2012 class of the “40 Under 40: PICPA Members to Watch.”

Scott Somerville, CPA
Tax Principal
SB & Company LLC

Scott is a tax advisor for SBC and has spent 35 years in public ac¬counting. Before joining SBC, Scott was at Arthur Andersen, LLP, where he was the partner in charge of the Baltimore Tax Practice and later became the Managing Partner. After Andersen, Scott con¬tinued his career as a Tax Partner and Market Leader at Ernst & Young, LLP. Scott is a seasoned financial executive with experience in multiple industries including technology, manufacturing, retail, and finance. Scott’s Big 4 experience consists of working almost exclusively with large multi-state, multi-national, C-Corporations. His experience is almost equally divided between tax planning, tax compliance, and financial statement tax accounting. Scott has sig¬nificant experience with mergers and acquisitions.

Special Qualifications
• Broad based expertise in tax compliance and planning
• Routinely advised clientele on tax accounting methods, inter¬national and domestic restructurings, mergers and acquisitions, transfer pricing, entity formations and liquidations
• Oversaw the preparation and/or auditing of very complex do¬mestic and multi-national public and private company income tax provisions

Professional and Civic Activities
• Adjunct professor at the University of Delaware
• Recognized as “Alumni of the Year” by the University of Dela¬ware, the Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics, and the Department of Accounting and MIS.
• Recently served as the Chairman of the University of Delaware Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics Advisory Board
• Audit Committee Member of the University of Delaware
• Treasurer of the Maryland Science Center

Fall 2016

Neil W. Yahn, Esq., LLM
Partner
JSDC Law

Neil W. Yahn is a partner with the law firm of JSDC Law in Hershey, Pennsylvania and serves on the faculty at Villanova University as an adjunct professor where he teaches Individual Taxation and Taxation of Business Entities.

Neil primarily concentrates his law practice on income, partnership, corporate and estate tax matters and related litigation. Neil advises clients with respect to the use of partnerships, S corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs) and other pass-through entities to assist clients in a wide range of tax planning matters. He works with our clients to use passthrough entities to avoid double taxation, to allow business owners to obtain the full benefit of tax losses or tax incentives, and to minimize the tax impact of various asset acquisitions or dispositions. In the controversy area, Neil has represented clients at the audit and appellate levels of the IRS and in litigation before the U.S. Tax Court. He has also represented large estates and beneficiaries in disputes over testamentary documents and claims of undue influence.

Neil is a graduate of the West Chester University and the Villanova University School of Law. At Villanova, he earned his Juris Doctorate and Masters in Taxation (LL.M.). Neil supplemented his Masters in Taxation from the Georgetown University Law Center where he focused on employee benefits and employer plan designs. Neil is AV Rated.

Finally, Neil resides in Hershey with his wife, Kris and two children, Neil Jr., and Taylor.

May 2018