CARL D. SCHARF CPA

Carl has more than 11 years of professional tax experience in public accounting. He has served privately-held and family-owned corporations, partnerships, LLC’s and high net worth individual clients, advising on various issues involving federal, international, state and local tax matters. Carl is primarily involved in strategic tax planning, research and compliance issues for corporate and pass-through type entities.

Carl has extensive experience working with companies operating in industry sectors ranging from real estate, construction, transportation/logistics, automotive, retail and professional services. He also has experience with the review and analysis of cost segregation studies, transfers/sales of partnership interests, and U.S. and foreign-based companies that have tax exposure from foreign-owned investments.

Education

B.S.B.A – Accounting and Economics, The Ohio State University

Professional and Community Involvement

Member—The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants

Member—The Ohio Society of Certified Public Accountants

SHARE

Do you have a hobby/personal passion? 
When not spending time with my wife and 3 kids, I enjoy playing golf and hockey.

What was the best advice you’ve ever received? 
Become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

What was your childhood dream?
To be a cartoonist – still have many of the drawings from when I was a child.

If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your college self? 
Buy stock in Apple

People would be surprised to know that I…
Go on an annual family vacation to Dewey Beach, DE with 6 other siblings, spouses, kids, parents and dogs.  We all stay in one beach house for a week.  If you are trying to do the math – that is 16 adults, 14 kids, and 2 dogs.

What is the best or most interesting thing about your career?  
Building personal relationships with clients and co-workers.

What was your first job?  
A caddy at Canterbury Golf Club in Cleveland, OH

Do you have advice for young professionals?
It’s too often that we focus on what we think we should or shouldn’t be doing to better our “career”. Embrace your current role.  Do you job conscientiously. Be flexible, reliable, and respectful and your career will take care of itself.

Our Thoughts On

FEATURED

Big Problem: A Not-for-profit Client Out Of 401(k) Compliance.


Big Thinking: Allowing More Contributions By Highly Paid Employees.

Shareholder JASON LUMPKIN serves as a Practice Unit Leader for SDAdvantage Retirement Solutions. He has more than 17 years of qualified retirement plan experience, primarily serving middle market, closely held businesses. His background includes plan design, documentation reporting, participant education, and ongoing administration for defined contribution plans, including employee stock ownership plans.
While working with one of our non profit clients, Jason’s team discovered that the organization was failing non-discrimination testing due to poor 401(k) participation among its employees. To address the issue, we recommended the implementation of a second retirement plan, a 403(b) plan, that would cover only the highly paid employees, allowing them to contribute the maximum amounts without concern for the limits imposed by the 401(k) plan’s non-discrimination testing. “These top employees were no longer constrained by the limits of the 401(k) plan testing results,” Jason said. “Plus, the organization no longer had to be concerned about the non-discrimination test. We also avoided implementing a “safe harbor” design in the 401(k) plan, which can result in costly employer contributions and vesting provisions that favor short-term employees.” Schneider Downs provides Big Thinking and Personal focus in delivering a variety of services for large and small businesses, both publicly and privately held, as well as nonprofit organizations, government entities and more. Through our commitment to thought leadership and knowledge management, we deliver the solutions our clients need with a personal commitment to service.

Have a question? Ask us!

We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a note, and we’ll respond to you as quickly as possible.

Breached?

Every moment counts. For urgent requests, contact the Schneider Downs digital forensics and incident response team at 1-800-993-8937. For all other requests, please complete the form below.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.