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CBIZ centralizes tech services post-merger

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Following its acquisition of Marcum last year, Top 10 Firm CBIZ has begun centralizing its disparate technology services offerings under a single office, headed by Peter Scavuzzo who — after being CEO of Marcum Technology — has now become the firm’s national leader of technology, as well as its chief strategy officer. 

Prior to the acquisition, CBIZ had a decentralized approach to technology services. Different parts of the firm had their own technology offerings specific to their practice area, which would then be bundled as part of the larger advisory service. The idea to centralize these service offerings came up between when the acquisition was first announced in July and when the deal finally closed in November. During this time, the leadership of both firms discussed many possible ideas for improving efficiency and productivity in different areas of the firm, including this one, though it was not until the deal’s conclusion that the plan gained real momentum. 

“Come November 1, and shortly after, we had a lot of accelerated meetings, looking at what we workshopped and what we knew of each other. And we said, all right, let’s take action and let’s start making quick decisions and figure out where to go from here. And we formulated [the change] and, all right, this sounds good. We like this overall. So now let’s get this going,” Scavuzzo told Accounting Today

Peter Scavuzzo CBIZ

Peter Scavuzzo, national technology leader and chief strategy officer, CBIZ

The new office, focused more on technology-centered client service offerings than internal IT operations more associated with the CIO, was formally established at the beginning of this year, and started integrating groups into its structure in February; the very first action was bringing together the data analytics groups from both firms, so they could operate as a single team.

The model the firm decided upon was that if the deliverable is rooted in technology, it will be aggregated into a single portfolio of technology services. Doing so allows CBIZ to offer a wide range of technology services. This includes the obvious areas such as IT infrastructure management as well as cybersecurity, including governance, risk controls, penetration testing and managed security. 

Outside typical operational IT functions, the new office acts as a strategic advisor to a company’s executive leadership when it comes to technology-aligned decisions. This means providing “thought leadership at a high level” on things like business transformation, AI implementation, or the enterprise system selection process. Professionals can theoretically go past even that by actually doing the implementation of these systems themselves. 

And finally, the office includes an emerging technology section that offers things like AI solutions, blockchain, data analytics or automation. 

“A company reads the news every day, and looks at how AI is having an impact. The CEO says, ‘Well, how is it going to impact me?’ [Say] I’m a health care CEO and I don’t want to just play, I want real, tangible use cases. I need someone to bring me through a journey quickly, because my IT team is traditionally operational, and they don’t have the depth of expertise, and I don’t want to miss out on the opportunity. We could step in and bring them through that, or anything else in the portfolio,” said Scavuzzo. 

He said that both CBIZ and Marcum had made heavy technology investments over the years, but that their particular specialties varied slightly, such as Marcum leaning a little more heavily on AI technology. By combining the firms’ different expertise in different areas, their new technology office became capable of offering services CBIZ could not offer before, leading to a wider variety of client offerings. One of the firm’s divisions, he noted, had been servicing a prominent client for a few years; this client noticed the new capacities under the combined office and wanted to learn more, so they brought his team onto the call. 

“Now, this is one division bringing in another division. We go in there and we win something CBIZ traditionally could not win. And then we’re getting a little deeper on the technology side, and we identify something to flip to a third division … The combination created a much more powerful offering,” he said, adding that “this win demonstrates what I think CBIZ intended to do by bringing Marcum into the portfolio: to be able to go into a client, a single service deliverable client, and now we’re going to be able to cross-sell and add more value to what we’re offering this client through multiple divisions of the company because of this combination,” he said. 

Getting to this point did require some change management, as it was a significant reordering of the firm’s structure, but Scavuzzo said that both CBIZ and Marcum already had a significant amount of M&A integration experience, having done hundreds of mergers between them. While no two transactions are exactly the same, he said there is a certain playbook that develops on how to execute integrations properly. While technology is part of it — noting that they need to integrate systems and data — he said that the people aspect is much more important. 

“Because while we’re integrating, we’re also forming new relationships and forming new bonds, and we are highly focused on accelerating that trust so that we both know, you know, we’re here to both make each other better,” he said. 

The benefits have been more people-oriented as well. Scavuzzo talked about how the data team, which before may have been siloed doing its own thing, is now in the same meetings as the AI leadership team, the strategic consulting group and other areas that, before, were not in the habit of regularly talking to each other. This has led not only to more relationship-building, but also the creation of new ideas and the identification of new opportunities. 

“Everybody’s just naturally engaging more, speaking more, in meetings, so when you’re dealing with a complex problem, you’re calling in all these people because you’ve built relationships with them. It’s a more natural collective service offering we could bring to our clients,” he said. 

Which, ultimately, is the goal: to provide clients equal if not better service than before. 

“To us, the client should either come out of it feeling no change or, if they do feel a change, it will all be on the positive side of the equation,” he said. 

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Accounting

Staten Island’s Malliotakis open to $30K SALT cap

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Representative Nicole Malliotakis said increasing the state and local tax deduction cap to $30,000 from $10,000 would reduce the tax burden of the vast majority of people in her district, indicating support for a proposal that is dividing Republicans.

“Every member needs to advocate for the particular needs of their district. Tripling the deduction to $30,000 will provide much-needed relief for the middle-class and cover 98% of the families in my district,” Malliotakis, a Republican representing Staten Island, New York and a member of the House tax committee, said in a statement to Bloomberg News on Friday.

Malliotakis’ nod of approval for a $30,000 SALT deduction cap comes as Republicans are fighting among themselves about how high to increase a tax break that has the potential to scuttle President Donald Trump’s entire tax package.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday said the $30,000 write-off limit is one of several options being discussed. That figure was rejected by several other New York Republicans, including Elise Stefanik, Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler and Andrew Garbarino. California’s Young Kim also rebuffed the idea.

Malliotakis’ district has less expensive property values and lower incomes than some of the other lawmakers pushing for a SALT expansion, making it politically viable for her to accept a lower cap than some of her colleagues.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt suggested on Friday that Trump would not weigh in on an appropriate level for a SALT cap, leaving it to lawmakers to resolve.

“There’s a lot of disagreement on Capitol Hill right now about the SALT tax proposal, and we will let them work it out,” she told reporters.

House Republicans’ narrow majority means that Johnson needs to win the support of nearly all his members to pass Trump’s tax-and-spending package. 

Several of the SALT advocates have said that they are willing to block the bill unless there is a sufficient increase to the deduction. However, most members have not publicly stated how high the deduction must be to win their support.

The debate over SALT has proved to be a particularly thorny fight because it is a political priority for a small but vocal group of Republicans representing swing districts critical to the party maintaining a majority in the 2026 midterm elections. 

Expanding the write-off is an expensive proposition, and Republicans have little fiscal wiggle room as they are sparring over ways — including cuts to Medicaid and levy hikes on millionaires — to offset the cost of the tax-cut package.

The House Ways and Means Committee is slated to consider the tax portion of the bill on Tuesday, including SALT changes.

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GOP eyes endowment tax hike in escalation of Ivy League feud

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House Republicans are considering increasing taxes on university endowments, a significant threat to some of the nation’s wealthiest schools as President Donald Trump seeks to tighten control over American higher education.

The measure is in a draft of the tax package Republicans are weighing, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details on the effort. The proposal would create a tiered system of taxation so that wealthy colleges and universities pay more as the size of their endowment grows, the people said. 

Republicans are considering boosting the 1.4% endowment tax currently on the books to rates as high as 14% to 21%, a person familiar with the matter said.

The bill is not finalized, however, the people cautioned, and the draft could change as Republicans negotiate its terms, a complex task as the party looks to renew and expand tax breaks and find ways to pay for them with only a narrow House majority.

Targeting university endowments would be a major escalation of Trump’s fight with elite colleges and universities, which has seen the administration demand changes to school policies that reflect his priorities. 

The current tax on private-school endowments ensnares many of the richest universities, like Harvard University and Yale University, as well as smaller elite institutions such as Amherst College and Williams College. Some of the wealthiest private colleges in the country boast endowments of at least $500,000 per student. 

Harvard, in particular, with a $53.2 billion endowment, has been locked in a high-stakes fight with the Trump administration over its demands for changes at the school. Harvard has sued several U.S. agencies and top officials for freezing billions of dollars in federal funding. Trump has also threatened the school’s tax-exempt status, though experts say revoking that designation would be a lengthy process involving the Internal Revenue Service and the courts.

A new poll by AP-NORC out Friday shows a majority of Americans disagree with Trump’s demands that higher-education institutions make curriculum and cultural changes or face the loss of federal funding for scientific and medical research or have their tax-exempt status threatened.

The poll found that 62% of Americans support maintaining federal research funding, 72% believe “liberals, students and professors can speak freely to at least some extent,” and 84% are concerned at some level about the cost of tuition, an issue Trump has not focused on.

Trump’s 2017 tax package, which Republicans are moving to renew, implemented an endowment levy of 1.4% on net investment income, similar to one that private foundations pay. That levy generated more than $380 million from 56 colleges or universities in 2023 — though it affected just a small fraction of the 1,700 private, nonprofit US schools. 

House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington floated a long list of possible budget cuts in January that included raising $10 billion over 10 years by raising the endowment tax to 14%.

Discussions over the Republican tax package are reaching a critical stage. Trump is meeting Friday with the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee — the chamber’s tax-writing panel, according to people familiar. 

Trump and Representative Jason Smith will discuss the draft proposal. The committee is expected to release parts of the bill later this afternoon and the rest of the draft on Sunday night or Monday, the people said.

One of the people familiar cast the effort as a bid by Republicans to ensure that universities spend their endowments on their students and not on other initiatives disfavored by conservatives, such as diversity, equity and inclusion efforts or on challenging the Trump administration’s policies.

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Accounting

PCAOB posts more staff presentations on QC 1000

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The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board posted more staff presentations to help with the implementation of QC 1000, A Firm’s System of Quality Control.

The videos cover roles and responsibilities, ethics and independence, people resources, and technological and intellectual resources. In April, the PCAOB posted more staff presentations covering acceptance and continuance, engagement performance, governance and leadership, and information communication. 

PCAOB logo - office - NEW 2022

The roles and responsibilities video covers the requirements involving the assignment of roles and responsibilities within the firm’s QC system. The ethics and independence video covers the firm and individual responsibilities under ethics and independence requirements applicable for engagements performed under PCAOB standards. 

The people resources video covers the firm’s responsibilities when employing people resources to the design, implementation and operation of the QC system. Finally, the technological and intellectual resources video focuses on the firm’s responsibilities when employing technological and intellectual resources in the QC system.

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