What You Will Discover:

Topics Discussed in this Episode:

Relevant Links:

Transcript

Meredith Smith: Chris, thank you so much for joining us today on this cultivation podcast. It’s great to have you here.  

Chris Muntifering: Thank you. I appreciate you having me on.  

Meredith Smith: And so, you’ve had an extensive career in tax that eventually led you to IPT. Can you share with us what drew you into the tax field initially and then how you ended up at IPT?  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah, I’d love to. I’ll try to give you the abbreviated version because, uh, it’s quite lengthy, but I think everybody can relate to that. So, I originally was in property tax, that’s how I got started. And like a lot of folks in property tax, you don’t Leave college saying, I’m going to go into property tax. You kind of fall into it. And then a lot of people in property tax stay in property tax. I think, I think a lot of folks say, no, I’m going to give it a whirl, see what’s like, and then I’m going to get out of it, but they don’t, they stay with it. 

So, when I graduated from college, I had a degree in finance and minors and economics and real estate, and I was going to set the world on fire being a real estate developer. I wanted to get into real estate development. Two big problems at the time, double digit inflation and double-digit interest rates. 

So, the real estate development market was just dead. There was nothing happening there. And so, a good friend of mine said, you know, if you really want to do something real estate related, you have to get an appraisal, because that would give you a good background and valuation of property. So, I thought, that’s, that sounds good. 

Problem was I didn’t have any educational experience in appraisal, but I was able to find, um, what’s like a, an analyst position. They called it appraiser, but it was an analyst position with a firm, a law firm in Minneapolis. That part of their practice was property tax appeals. And I’m like, you know, I didn’t know anything about property tax appeals. 

I was like most people, I just figured, well, you just pay your property taxes. And so, I went there thinking, well, I’ll just do this for a couple of years and get a little more experience, move on to something else. Well, a couple of years landed in five years. And then I went to do some consulting for the national firm for three years and then decided that I got, I was, got married and kids were coming along and decided I needed something a little more stable. 

And so, I landed a job with a food manufacturer in Minneapolis and corporate tax management. So, and I can say it was a Pillsbury company, which was owned by, um, it’s now called Diageo. And so, they own Pillsbury, and they own Burger King, and they own Pearl Vision. So, they had a lot of companies. It gave me a lot of exposures to property tax across the, from, you know, manufacturing to retail to, uh, restaurants. 

So, it was a really good exposure. It was a good transition for me. And I just stayed with that. Until, well, until Pillsbury was acquired by Jenner Mills and then I made the transfer to Jenner Mills. And so throughout that, I was probably about 20 to 25 years in the corporate tax management side of things. 

And along the way, you know, I came across IPT. So, when I went to Pillsbury, I’d only done real estate appeals. I hadn’t done any personal property. And now I needed to get educated in the personal property. So, I took IPT, took the course, just loved the course, loved the organization. Some of the instructors at that time were about my age, and we became good friends. 

We’re still good friends to this day. And, um, I just started doing more and more with IPT. Um, I was on committees, I was on schools, and then I, uh, was on the board for a number of years. And then I became, I was an officer, was elected officer, second vice president, and first vice president, and I was contracted to be president. 

Along the way, my job at General Mills got eliminated. And about six months later, the executive director at IPT said he was going to step down. So, it was an opportunity. I thought, well, why not? Give it a whirl. I mean, at the time, I was 50 some years old. Nobody was going to hire a corporate property tax manager at that point. 

So, this IPT seemed, while I was, well versed in the organization, I’d been very active with it. And so, I applied. I went through the selection process. Interviewed with the selection committee and interviewed with the board, which is a little funny because I was on the board at the time – I interviewed with the very people who are my colleagues. 

They selected me and I’m very grateful. I’m very honored that they did that. So, in a very short, in a nutshell version, that’s how I got involved with IPT. And that’s where I am today.  

Judy Vorndran: Interesting. Yeah. Because I go back to when, who is it that was original IPT? Executive director Billy. Is it Billy? 

Chris Muntifering: Yeah, Billy Cook. Well, Billy wasn’t the first, but he wasn’t. Okay. But he was the longest. He, you know, yeah, two years in that position. Yeah.  

Judy Vorndran: So that’s probably when I started with IPT was Billy was still in charge.  

Chris Muntifering: Right, right. And then, and then Cass Vickers came along, you know, Cass. He was very short tenure three years and then yeah,  

Judy Vorndran: that was a disappointment because he I thought he was phenomenal, but he had a life pivot, right? So, I think that’s why he decided to step down. Yeah.  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah, I enjoyed working with Cass when I was on the board, and it was it was really nice to follow him in that role. And I was like, well, maybe there’s a greater intervention here. That’s, that’s guiding my path.  

Judy Vorndran: Well, how interesting that your job will be eliminated though. I mean, it’s so important. Why would they not think they needed you? That surprises me.  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah. You know, at the time there was this massive job cuts across the board and they don’t care about, you know, what role you’re in. And it always surprises me. Not just the company that I was at, but other companies that make cuts in tax departments because I know those folks are providing some of the greatest value.  

Judy Vorndran: Yes. Could not agree more. The money. That’s why I’ve never gone into industry, frankly, because I’m a money maker, right? I’m an advocate and I am going to save you money by being knowledgeable about all the issues and I’m going to pay for my salary. Way more than you pays me, but there’s something about that where we’re not valued in industry. We are, and then we aren’t. And it’s like, that’s just, that’s part of your bottom line – tax. Get rid of it.  

Chris Muntifering: And specifically with property tax, it’s sort of how it was soared because yes, sometimes they just leave you alone thinking, I don’t know what you do, but you correct. And sometimes it’s like, I don’t know what you do. I’m going to get rid of you and that’s the end of it.  

Judy Vorndran: We sort of operate in an island, which is, I think part of what we’ve attracted in our team is people who care about this passionately, and we work with each other, so we’re kind of allies. cause in industry people is like, what tax? You’re like, it’s important. But yet it’s sort of like nobody thinks about it. And only large companies can have people like you, but that is just walking away from money to not have you be a part of the team anymore. And your institutional knowledge? About the assets. Wow. Yeah. 

Interesting. Yeah. It’s an interesting culture in America. We’re anti-tax, but let’s not keep the tax people around.  

Meredith Smith: Well, or I’ve seen the contrary, right? Where tax, we typically work in arrears. Right. So, we’re, recording around the fall tax extended deadline, doing stuff for generally calendar year 2023, 10 months out, but doing things simultaneously, right. 

Audits are three years ago. And so, I’ve had friends who’ve company who have been in internal tax, but once everyone else was released, tax was the last one standing because they had open audits. They had open litigation and they’re like, we can’t get rid of these people. We have to continue to pay them because institutional knowledge. And case is eight years old. Right. But you know, it’s only in the courts now. So, it’s, it’s interesting, the dichotomy of, of how that can be kind of perceived. But also, Chris love that, it’s those relationships, right? When you went to Pillsbury, it’s like, I need a network, I need resources, I need help. 

And that’s kind of what kept you right, creating the friendships and kind of what brought you to where you are today. And as we talk to people kind of across accounting and taxes, that’s always been kind of the underlying theme of the relationships and really what keeps us going and keeps us going and being good at what we do. 

So, that’s great to hear what brought you to your current position. And so, with that, I guess for our listeners, what does IPT stand for? Because we’ve just been talking acronyms, I don’t think we’ve actually said it, but how is IPT structured and what is the mission of the organization? 

Chris Muntifering: So, the easy answer is IPT stands for Institute for Professionals in Taxation. It originally started out as the Institute of Property Taxation.  

Judy Vorndran: That’s what I thought. Yes, that’s the impetus of it was property taxes. Yes.  

Chris Muntifering: And as the organization grew and brought in sales and use tax and the state income tax, obviously the name Institute for Property Taxation didn’t fit across the board. It didn’t fully represent the membership. So, trying to keep with the IPT in Sydney change it to Institute for Professionals in Taxation.  

Judy Vorndran: Interesting. I knew that. I mean, I go back away. It’s not as bad as the organization, but Bob Atkinson was my boss at Deloitte and he’s the one who said I should get involved. And that was 20, 30, maybe close to 30 years ago. So, a long time ago. And he said, I’m a lawyer and a CPA. So, he said, you could go to the ABA IPT and get duly certified. And this is what you should do. And he was a president of the organization at one point. And he was a sales tax guy, but I think he was property tax too because he was Sears & Roebuck. He worked at Sears with a lot of stores and now no longer a relevant entity, but I love the Sears catalog. That was Amazon in the day, right? Black and white catalog. You didn’t even have sticky notes. You just circled it. You’re like, I want this.  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah. Kind of funny. When the Christmas catalog didn’t look, that was it.  

Meredith Smith: Yeah. I did that too. And now Amazon sends a Christmas catalog. Amazon sends a holiday catalog. It showed up last week. So, you have plenty of purchasing time, two months ahead of time. But as we digress, what is the mission and kind of the founding principles of why IPT exists?  

Chris Muntifering: Let me answer the second part of your question that you had originally, how are we structured? IPT is structured as a 501c3. So, we’re a not-for-profit organization committed to education. All right. That differentiates us from some of the other folks.  

Judy Vorndran: Like a C6 or something, which is an advocacy group or a lobbying group or something or professional organization. 

Chris Muntifering: Exactly. So as a C3, we can only do education. So, in order to maintain that tax income status, we can only do education. We can’t do advocacy. We can’t do lobbying.  

Judy Vorndran: Ah. So, I didn’t realize that. I didn’t know that.  

Chris Muntifering: So, our mission, Meredith, is that we provide broad based education across the four disciplines in IBT. So, its property tax, it’s sales and use tax, its state income tax, and its credits and incentives. By being broad based, we provide education from the very basic introductory level to advanced schools, to our symposiums and then our annual conference across all four disciplines.  

Judy Vorndran: Credit system says property tax, income taxes, sales tax, but we still have that. We’ve had a little bit of that, but not that concentrated? Because I’ve been to some bad things over the years.  

Chris Muntifering: Well, as a matter of fact, we’ve had a VAT symposium for a number of years. It’s typically followed our sales tax symposium because it just made sense. It still does make sense that you follow up your sales tax with the VAT because people are there for sales tax. They can go right to the VAT. This year we’ve provided a VAT school. It was the first time we provided a school and overwhelmingly, it was well received, I should say.  

Judy Vorndran: I thought about sending someone to that. We are getting those issues because with internet, there are no walls, there are no borders. Like people can sell anywhere to anyone. We just talked to a potential client from the UK selling across Europe and of course selling to the American market. What do we do? Right. We got VAT issues of a UK entity. We have treaty, we have crazy stuff, right. And we want to collect us health tax. Like, how do you do that? 

The boundaries of business have been eroded. Which opens us the VAT issue for people in the transaction world because we have a transaction. How do we manage it? So that’s very interesting. I’ve seen us morphing. I just didn’t know how intentionally that was How big a leg of the stool that’s going to become  

Chris Muntifering: So, we’ll offer the VAT school again. In our organization, I could see that being our fifth discipline someday.  

Judy Vorndran: How do you decide that will officially become so? I mean, how did this morph? Because I feel like it’s been trickling until we have the school.  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah. You know, it’s going to establish itself as something that’s consistent year in and year out. I think it will establish that self. I say give it a couple of years with the school and the symposium. And then I think it makes more sense to create a separate discipline within that. Okay. These are things that never happen overnight, of course. They have to evolve. 

Judy Vorndran: Yeah, and you have to see what the constituency is. But it’s so imperative for the younger generation to empower them with information as we’re morphing off into the legacy of our careers. How are we going to get the younger generation engaged? Like you said, people don’t even think about this. 

I have a law degree, a master’s of tax. Never took a state and local class. I fell into this career myself and it interested me. Everyone we talked to in multistate tax — I could give you the list — like nobody started out being a state local person  

Meredith Smith: Weird that’s right. You did I’m okay, but some of that it was also opportunity, right? I knew I knew I was going to be an accountant in high school. I took the accounting class in high school, declared it as my major in undergrad, and then the opportunity came up, right? My grandfather was a CPA. My brother worked in state and local tax. I’m a salt Nepo baby. My brother threw my name in the ring for an internship when I was a junior in college and I was like, I want to work. I don’t care were. I don’t want to do audit. I want to do tax. Don’t care where, don’t care how. And he’s like, well, this is what we need. And so that was almost 20 summers ago, 20 summers ago. 

Judy Vorndran: And your kind of unusual, I feel like, with people like Chris. It’s like, I feel like we all fell into it. And then this is actually kind of a cool area. Cause I started out as general federal tax practitioner. And I thought, why am I doing this? I want to ski. I live in Colorado. I don’t want to work every weekend and I’ll be darn if I want to work Labor Day. I fundamentally have a problem with that, but I’d rather be busy on the 20th of every month. What am I thinking with a monthly requirement? But I don’t know, the web was weaved and there you go. I’m caught in it.  

Meredith Smith: And so, we’ve thrown out some of the kind of like various educational tracks. So, the symposium, the school, the annual conference, how does IPT educate? What kind of programs do they offer and what are the differences between the symposium, the school, the annual conference? Can you talk through some of the kind of just gatherings that occur?  

Chris Muntifering: So, the schools are established to provide tax management, skills to its attendees. So, if you’re brand new, and we see that a lot with property tax and sales tax, people are just thrown into it saying, okay, now you’re going to do property tax, property tax and sales tax. And they don’t have any experience. So, our basic schools, our entry level schools provide them with that very broad-based education, if you will. And then we have advanced schools that capitalize on top of the teachings of the prior schools. So that’s sort of your tax management base, if you will, in terms of education. 

And then the symposiums, they’re all discipline specific, right? Sales tax only has sales tax topics; property tax only has property tax topics. And each of those five disciplines, and I throw a VAT in there because that’s a separate, symposium. Those are specific to those disciplines. So that’s where you’re going to get sort of your advanced education if you will. 

And then our annual conference is the one that brings all those disciplines together. So, if you’re somebody that, let’s say, you primarily do property tax, but you dabble a little bit in sales tax, you do some state income tax or credits, you can go to the conference. You can pick up your basic property tax education, but you can also go to these breakout sessions in sales tax and credits incentives. 

And it gives you an opportunity to cover everything. That’s generally how we’re structured with our programs. We also do the, as Judy knows, we do the ABA/IPT conference. So, we partner with ABA on that and those are legal seminars. That’s a day and a half session in each of three disciplines, state income tax, sales, and then property. That’s more legal base, but it’s not exclusive to attorneys. We do have a lot of people who are not attorneys that attend those sessions because they’re very informative.  

Judy Vorndran: Yeah, it’ covers what’s happening across the country and the cases that are going to impact taxpayers. It’s such a big deal. Like what’s coming down the pipeline? What industry will be hit next? I remember going hearing from the guy from Alabama and the lawyer, I think he represented Overstock, talking about the Wayfair decision stare decisis. I remember sitting there at that luncheon thinking, I think the Wayfair thing is going to win. In other words, the South Dakota is going to win. And they did because the internet has changed the way business is going. And we’ve got to that tax is not getting in the coffers of state governments too many trillions of dollars. 

And that’s what happened. So, I remember thinking, oh, this is amazing. We have these people sitting at the table, we get to talk to them. Also, it’s interesting that those companies took those cases forward. 800,000 people live in South Dakota. It’s just not that important as a market, I’m sure, but making the standard for the rest of us to maybe follow suit. So yeah, it was really interesting what we bring to the table in terms of the people litigating the cases. I think it’s huge. That network is so important to know how that sausage is getting made across our states.  

Chris Muntifering: Right. And you touched on a very good point that at these programs, you have the opportunity to actually meet these people. Right? You’re not just an attendee there. You can go up to that person after they’re all done and have a conversation with them. And they’re always willing to get engaged with the members. So, it’s a great opportunity for not just general networking, but also to meet these decision makers.  

Judy Vorndran: Well, when I left the big four, I spent 14 years at Deloitte and PwC. When I left and went to a regional firm and I was the salt desk, I needed a network. I could not do it without IPT. You are a godsend to me as a program that doesn’t have a Washington National desk, doesn’t have a Michigan desk. I called my IPT brethren, and they helped me. It’s a wonderful network of humans that are connected in their industries amongst their states with a wild breadth of knowledge. So, you could go, I think I read this law right, but can you confirm that I’m thinking right? They answer the phone. I have had help from an IPT member ever in my entire career of almost 30 years. It’s been a phenomenal organization in my humble opinion.  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah. Well, the access to the membership information is, is so wonderful. It is more than the price of admission as they say, so you’re absolutely right.  

Judy Vorndran: I’ve just been in the list. I find somebody in this state and call them and see what they think. Because we’re not so sure what the department of revenue is going to do. We don’t want to call the department, right? This is a questionable thing. What do you all think? So, I have always been found every time I’ve gone, it’s been invaluable. The people that I’ve taught, the community, it’s been a wonderful community in America. The younger generation needs to get involved too.  

Meredith Smith: Right. I couldn’t agree more. When I left Big Four, that was one of my biggest concerns. I left that trapping and I was like, well, I’m the first internal state and local tax resource. I know I’m smart, but I can’t know everything. And so that was one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome was like, oh my God, this person’s hiring a state and local income tax person for a small firm. They’re going to expect me to know everything, and again, as smart as I can be, I’m not litigating, I’m not challenging rules in New York, and so, going back to that connectivity, this is just another means to do it. Bring the people together who think alike and who struggle alike. Right?  

Judy Vorndran: Well, different industries are dealt with differently, right? Like transportation is different than food service than hotels. I mean, there is a wide swath of industry in America. How do we deal with that? How do we tax it? We need to come together with other people. Cause of course we have the supremacy clause and our United States competition constitution that allows a lot of Kings. We left 1776, so we wouldn’t have a king and now we have like 50 kings plus a bunch of different subordinates that run their own fiefdoms like the locals.  

Meredith Smith: I know you had kind of mentioned and we’ve kind of talked about this that as a 501 c3, IPT’s role is not to lobby. So, any IRS examiner out there, that is not what they do. We are affirmatively stating that but you know, you’ve, how do you determine, or do you determine just to either get involved in a case or again, not lobby, but kind of throw out your knowledge base or kind of the weight behind what the, what the institution needs? 

Chris Muntifering: So, uh, the best example of that would be the amicus brief request that would come through. We do have a process for that. By being a friend of the court per se, we’re not really taking a position in terms of advocating for a law change or a case or whatever the case or whatever it may be, but we could kind of throw our weight behind that saying we support the taxpayer in whatever case it may be. So, the way the process works for us. The reason is that we have a legal committee, right? And the legal committee takes on those requests that come in and there’s a whole day of requirements before they’ll actually take a look at it. And they’ll make a recommendation to the board of governors about whether it should get behind or not. 

And there’s some things, like there’s a 45-day minimum rule that they have. Obviously, they just need time to look at it. We may pass on a case because somebody who’s asked for requests didn’t give the legal committee enough time to evaluate the case. It’s not that we were opposed to it, we just didn’t have time to evaluate it. 

And then the legal committee will make a decision whether that’s in the best interest of the organization as a whole. It may be in the best interest of the requester, but it may not be in the best interest of other IPT members. So, you know, on its face it may sound like it’s a good, good thing to get behind, but it’s not. 

If it’s not to the benefit of the majority of the members, they’re not going to do it. So, there’s a lot of things that go into the process. It’s not a slam dunk per se.  

Judy Vorndran: And then when they do it, it’s a volunteer effort to draft that. Correct? Correct.  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah. Because they have the resources and often, they come to the table with something prepared. That’s about as far as we get into the, the advocacy, if you will, and it’s not really a role at all. We’re just supporting our members in that regard.  

Meredith Smith: Well, what about other state tax organizations out there. So how would you say that IPT is different than some of those organizations. COST, for example, the Council of State Taxation, does IPT view them as a competitor? Are we all just trying to put out, information and resources and build community around state and local tax? 

Chris Muntifering: No, we don’t consider IPT to be a competitor of COST and I hope they would do the same. At the end of the day, we both have the same objectives, and we want to make sure that there’s fair and uniform tax administration across the board and how you go about it or maybe two different tracks and maybe have a different track than IPT has. We’re focused on education, and they do education as well, of course, but they’re also advocates. 

So that’s fine. But at the end of the day, you have to understand there’s just this one pool, this one bag of money that is going to get spent. And we hope that while you spend your money with us, they hope that they spend the money with them. So, it’s really what you choose.  

Kind of reminds me when I was a kid, you know, growing up in a very humble home is that we had one cereal. I like to go back to cereal because I worked for a cereal company. My mother would open up the cupboard and say, okay, this is what you’re having. This is your cereal. We didn’t have a choice. That’s it. And it’s kind of that way now, so, we know our members, typically, they may be told, you can go to one program this year. That’s it. Right? You decide which one you’re going to. And so, obviously we hope they go to our program, but we know that there’s value in other organizations as well. They have to pick what’s best for them. But we try to create programs that will satisfy them to the best of their expectations.  

Judy Vorndran: We take the feedback each time and try to evolve and modify our content to meet the needs of the community. I know like the annual meeting probably has the largest attendee, would you say, group of attendees, or no? 

Chris Muntifering: No, sales tax symposium is the largest.  

Judy Vorndran: Wow. Okay. I feel like years ago I went to it in Huntington Beach, and I feel like there were thousands of people there. Was there ever that many or is that just a missed memory on my part?  

Chris Muntifering: Well, it might be a missed memory on your part, but I think there seems like there’s a lot of people there because it’s not just the registrants that are there. If they bring their families, you had spouses and you had kids and it’s really busy and it’s full. It all seems like a lot of IPT people.  

Judy Vorndran: I can just remember going to things like, wow, there are a lot of people here. With COVID and things like that, some things tapered off and it’s now nice to see people back. I remember being in Austin a few years ago, if that was 2021, 2022, I’m not sure. And it was when the Delta strain was coming out and we’re all there and like. But it was lovely to see people again.  

Meredith Smith: We have had Jordan on. We’ve had the very first podcast recorded, and I’ve listened to it and it’s like someone who’s speaking to it and has we’ve done since what, 80 something episodes. I don’t want to go back and witness that. That was heart of COVID sitting on the floor of my kid’s room while they were allowed to be in daycare. No, thank you.  

Judy Vorndran: So, what was the cereal you had in your house?  

Chris Muntifering: Probably what was it? Whatever was on sale that week.  

Judy Vorndran: Okay. Okay. Cause we had Cheerios. So not Honey Nut, Cheerios. I don’t think Honey Nut existed. And I always wanted Captain Crunch and Fruit Loops. So, it might’ve been a competition, right?  

Chris Muntifering: Generally, no sugared cereal. So, because those are more expensive. 

Judy Vorndran: Yep, and my mom wouldn’t buy them, only on a rare occasion with a lot of begging. 

Meredith Smith: And we want to talk about the CMI, right? So, the Certified Member of the Institute designation is kind of a hallmark of IPT. Can you walk us through about how the CMI program kind of came to be, why it’s important, and why the test is so hard?  

Judy Vorndran: It’s got some street cred, I’ll tell you that, as someone who’s a lawyer and a CPA, it’s a good test. I was impressed.  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah. So, the CMI actually started when IPT started, the Institute for Professional Taxation. So, at that time, property tax folks on the corporate side tended to go to IAO, the International Association of Assessment Officers Annual Conference. You’d have the assessors there and then you’d have all the property tax people. And so, when they decided that the corporate property tax people really need to have their own organization, they created IPT. But they also recognized that IAO has very good designations. We need to have one that kind of reflects who we are. 

And, and so that’s how the CMI and property tax certifications came to be. The founding fathers said it basically has to reflect education and it has to reflect experience and has to reflect the accomplishment of testing. And so, once it got established within property tax and then as IPT expanded into the other disciplines, it just made sense to have designations in those disciplines as well. 

And today those designations are recognized across the board as something, I don’t want to offend anybody, CPAs, but, you know, it’s kind of on that same level, if you will. The CMI/CCIP, because the CCIP is the equivalent in the credits and instead it carries the same weight as the CMI. 

We say that it’s a little bit different from the CPA exam, that we require experience. You have to have five years of experience before you can take the exam. CPAs do not. I give my daughter a hard time. My daughter’s a CPA before you’ve had the experience. 

Chris Muntifering: As a lawyer you can take the bar exam.  

Judy Vorndran: Oh, and you don’t even know how to be a lawyer. 

Chris Muntifering: Yeah, so the CMI could distinguish this from other designations and that we do require the experience  

Judy Vorndran: Interesting. Well, I felt like it was at Deloitte where I was still senior. I left when I was a manager at Deloitte. And I remember there was a decision because we kept hiring a lot of people, nontraditional hires right to get good experience in sooner, not grow them from the beginning up. And that was the pivot when state local became more of a national practice. That was the way it was a PwC. And then Deloitte was doing the same when I joined them. That was like a national practice locally housed. And we had a lot of nontraditional hires, and they weren’t CPAs, but they were subject matter experts. And so where are you going to get them in the slate? And then of course, hiring attorneys, if you’re not a CPA firm, where do you give them a place for advancement? 

So, the CMI was a recognized way to get people to elevate. So, there was a requirement in order to have the upper designation at one point to have to take the CMI. So, we definitely put that constraint on employees to elevate them, motivate them to get credentialed in their way. And it gave them an opportunity without being a CPA to advance in the organization. 

So, I know they came up with like the director title, the principal title versus partner, and it allowed people that are subject matter experts to stay within the organization. So, I know it gave some credit to Deloitte anyway, because it was a constraint for a long time and a path to upper advancement, honestly, rather than being a non-CPA.  

Chris Muntifering: Right. So, I think most of the firms do require, not require, but they will allow the CMI. I can’t speak for them directly because I’ve never been in direct contact with them in telling this. Yeah. I don’t even know.  

Judy Vorndran: I’ve been gone for a long time, but I know that used to be an issue. It was like, it was a bone of contention. I remember when I came in, because I was not a CPA, even though I could have sat, I didn’t, I was a lawyer, but it was like, I’m in a CPA organization. I need to become a CPA. 

Like I can’t just be a lawyer. Then we hired a bunch of lawyers, which changed the character of the big four or big eight or whatever we were at the time. Like then, they wanted lawyers, but at the time they didn’t really want lawyers. Like, you know, as they evolved as an organization, they’re like, we need these people with these subject matter competencies. 

And so, they didn’t always have a direct path in accounting to tax as you didn’t either your finance, real estate, that’s not tax. That’s why I know we cared about that when I was at Deloitte. I don’t know how much they still do, but I know that was, it’s important. I know the exam is amazingly difficult and it has value. 

Chris Muntifering: Right. I know when I got my CMI and I was in the corporate tax department, I did get recognized for doing that just in the same way that others did when they got their CPAs. So yeah, it’s not just the advocacy firms, but also corporations are recognized in the CMI as well. Yeah, and it is a tough test. 

There’s well, there’s two components to it, right? There’s a written component. It’s a tough exam in each of the disciplines. It’s hard and I can’t share the pass rate because we just not allowed to do that but for the written exam, it’s a five-hour exam and most people take the full five hours. 

Judy Vorndran: I was shocked at how hard it was. I’m like, Oh my gosh. And what I learned because I did not pass the written test, so I have to retake it. I passed the oral, so I haven’t gotten it myself because I don’t remember the cases and the standards. It’s like when I came to the conclusion, I was like, man, I got a lot of respect for this exam. 

I got the opportunity to take it. I think it was great to do that for my own personal understanding, but it really does give you the tenants which these rules are based upon. And if you don’t understand the history, you don’t understand how the laws got from here to there. And I think that’s super important. 

So, I think that legitimizes it in my mind. And I would value that with an employee hire. If they weren’t a traditional CPA, I would say you got something because you did a CMI that has some value to me. So, it taught me as someone who was like, well, I don’t need these extra things, how valuable that knowledge was. 

So, kudos to the organization for having that. It really is a big deal. And I think it teaches people important stuff, honestly, that helps them build their career. I think it’s a really valuable exercise to go through.  

Chris Muntifering: And I think there is a misunderstanding and people that want to take the exam to think, well, I’ll take the schools and that should be enough. Well, the schools are not prep courses. That’s kind of the basis of the CMI. You have to do more than be book smart. You’ve got to have some experience behind you and hopefully you have credible experience. That’s going to help you with that exam.  

Judy Vorndran: Yeah, well, the verbal was easy for me because I’ve been practicing a long time. But I don’t remember some of this, and it really taught me a little slap on the wrist to say, you should learn your history. 

Chris Muntifering: I would never say that the oral is easier.  

Judy Vorndran: Oh, I didn’t think it was easy. It’s just the practical, it’s practical. It’s where the experience really weighs in of understanding. If you don’t have experience, you’re not going to be able to do the written or the oral at all. No way. Cause it’s a fact pattern. That’s very convoluted. And you’re like, how do I solve this problem? It was difficult. Agreed.  

Chris Muntifering: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s just not taking that fact pattern, but you have to present that fact pattern to the committee. So that’s, I think that often gets lost on the applicants. I know the content and I know the fact pattern, but wait, there’s this third component is you have to present your position to this panel of committee members.  

Judy Vorndran: I thought it was phenomenal. 

Meredith Smith: As a practitioner, as internal person, you’re just not going to sit at a desk and be like, okay, I know the answer. That’s it. You never do. Like, right? Like that research has to go somewhere. You have to communicate it in some form or fashion. So, I think when you talk about the CMI that you have to have five years of experience to even take the thing, that is a large component of what our job is, you know, communicating our results. Good, bad or ugly, right?  

Judy Vorndran: Yep.  

Meredith Smith: And so, I think that’s admirable that the test acknowledges that skill set and that is part of how you’re judged on that credential.  

Judy Vorndran: Yeah. it’s really good. Really, really, really good.  

Meredith Smith: And so, Chris, as we wrap up, is there something about IPT that you want our listeners to know that we maybe haven’t touched on, other than to make sure that you remember to join? 

Chris Muntifering: We’ve just recently engaged in a rebranding of the organization. So, if you go to the website, you’ll see it’s much different than it was before. And people don’t realize this until you tell them. If you look at the logo, the logo has changed. The old logo had the scale of justice. Those are gone. So, it’s been rebranded. And part of this has been that we recognize that our membership basis is changing. So, the younger folks are coming up and we tell them this is going to be your organization someday. This is not the people who are leading the organization today. So, there’s a big initiative now to get younger folks involved in the organization. And there’s multiple ways of doing that. You can serve on committees. There’s always some room for a committee member somewhere. 

The corporate people, we don’t know they have challenges and travel, but we’re always looking for corporate papers. We need that perspective. We do. If you’re a corporate speaker, your registration fee is waived. So that’s a big chunk of money that’s going to benefit you, right? I mean, get involved in the organization. That’s our biggest push right now. Because obviously we’re all aging, we’re getting older, we’re getting grayer.  

Judy Vorndran: I color my hair. I’m still 27 in my head. But my gray doesn’t really show. I have very little gray. 

Chris Muntifering: So, we really want younger folks to get involved in the organization. We have a subcommittee now; it’s called the Emerging Leaders. And it sort of was young professionals, but it doesn’t have to be young professionals. It has to be anybody who’s new to the organization. No one wants to have an impact on where the future of the organization is. So, I mean, you could be 50 years old and become a new member of IPT and want to be an emerging leader.  

Meredith Smith: All right, Chris. Well, thank you so much. We do really appreciate the organization. 

We are participants. We are members. We are teachers. We are speakers. We enjoy that time to get together. And so, thank you for your work with IPT. And this has been Saltivation. Till next time. 

]