Today's tax world offers no shortage of challenges key to TEI's success is balancing continuity and change.

• Author: Boyle, Michael P.
• Position: Tax Executive Institute

TEI's Annual Meeting of Members, held the second week of August, presented the Board of Directors and other Institute leaders with the opportunity to look both backward and forward. The backward look enabled us to assess the diligent efforts and good works of Judy Zelisko whose term as TEI President ended on August 9th. Judy is an incredibly dedicated, driven, and hardworking tax executive. I was honored to serve as her Senior Vice President, and on behalf of the entire membership, I thank her for her strong and effective leadership.

Year in Review

At Judy's suggestion, a year ago the Board adopted the theme "Be Effective, Stay Effective" for the year, and adopted the following objectives:

* Be Current, Stay Current ... Through Quality Education Programs on Tax Developments and Tax Management Issues

* Be Connected, Stay Connected ... by Enhancing Member Communications and Strengthening Network of Tax Professionals

* Be a Voice, Have a Voice ... Through Enhanced Advocacy

* Be Involved, Stay Involved ... By Identifying and Addressing Demographic Trends and Other Barriers to Membership Growth

* Be Efficient, Stay Effective ... by Improving Operation and Management of TEI

In phrasing the goals the way she did, Judy brought a marketing person's savvy to the Institute's efforts to remain the preeminent association of business tax professionals. But she did more than come up with a few memorable phrases. Day in and day out, she backed the words up with one accomplishment after another. The Institute's 2005 Annual Report (which will be included in the next issue of the magazine) will review the year in full, but consider the following highlights:

Education: TEI held a full complement of conferences, seminars, courses, and telephone/ web conferences. All in all, 2,957 individuals registered for our programs. Our conferences continue to attract top-level keynote speakers, such as Secretary of the Treasury John Snow, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, and IRS Chief Counsel Don Korb. In addition, we attracted a record crowd for our FAS 109 seminar, and the program for our Second Senior Tax Executive Conference was even stronger than it was for our first.

Networking and Communication: TEI completed work on its 2004-2005 Corporate Tax Management Survey, releasing a book and CD that contained more than 12,000 tables. We also launched a new website and, through more updates and monthly emails to our members...