New York State Tax Commissioner Visits LMC!

On Thursday, August 15, the new Commissioner of New York State’s Department of Taxation & Finance visited LM Cohen & Company. Michael R. Schmidt was nominated to the position by Governor Andrew Cuomo in January and confirmed by the State Senate on June 20. He was a guest of the NYSSCPA’s New York, Multistate & Local Taxation Committee, which held its monthly meeting in our offices.

The Commissioner outlined his major objectives, stating that the most important one was to bring more of a taxpayer perspective to the Department’s operations. His goal is for the agency to improve the overall quality by treating customer service the same way a private company would. He also emphasized the need to enhance the technology that handles the 10 million tax returns, 5 million phone calls, and 17 million pieces of correspondence the Department processes each year.

A roundtable between Commissioner Schmidt and the NYSSCPA committee members enabled a mutual understanding of each other’s perspective as well as ways the Department and tax professionals can work together going forward for the benefit of New York State taxpayers.

NYS Tax Commissioner Michael R. Schmidt (center) is joined by LMC’s Managing Partner Lee M.Cohen (L) and Tax Manager Jeffrey S. Gold (R).