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.
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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).