Michael E. Mares, CPA/ABV, J.D., is the Director of Tax Programs for Mares Nichols CPE, Inc; and a special member at the CPA and consulting firm of PKF Witt Mares, PLC. He has been named an American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) Outstanding Discussion Leader three times. He has also been named five times as one of the "100 most influential accountants in the U.S." and has been named a Virginia "Super CPA" three times. He is a member of the AICPA Professional Ethics Executive Committee and the AICPA Strategic Planning Committee. He also is a past vice chair of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner's Advisory Council, a past member of the AICPA Board of Directors and past chair of the AICPA's Tax Division Executive Committee, which represents more than 350,000 CPAs in tax matters. In 2006, he was awarded the Arthur Dixon award by the AICPA Tax Division, for service to the tax profession. In 1998, Mares was named the Virginia Society of CPAs (VSCPA) Outstanding Member. A licensed attorney in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Mares is a member of the American and Virginia bar associations. His lecture topics include tax law updates, estate planning, corporate reorganization, management of volunteers, deriving cash flow information from tax returns, handling the media and tax planning. Co-author of "Limited Liability Companies," "Guide to Dealing With the IRS," "IRS Practice and Procedures," "Practitioner's 1065 Deskbook" and "Individual Case Studies in Tax Planning," Mares' articles appear regularly in Virginia trade journals, and he has been interviewed on MSNBC, CNBC's Power Lunch and Court TV's Prime Time Justice on tax matters.