SARAH R. PIOT CPA

Sarah is a shareholder in the tax advisory practice, bringing over 20 years of public accounting experience. She excels in delivering comprehensive tax services to a diverse array of tax-exempt organizations, including social service organizations, arts and cultural entities, higher education institutions, private foundations and business and professional associations.

Sarah’s expertise includes supervising the preparation of tax-exempt organizations’ returns and addressing specialized issues unique to these entities, such as:

  • Compensation and private inurement issues

  • Unrelated business income analysis

  • Foreign information reporting requirements

  • Board member relationships and transactions with disqualified persons

  • Conflict-of-interest best practices and annual execution

Education

B.S.- Accounting, Robert Morris University

Professional and Community Involvement

Chair—Schneider Downs Not-for-Profit Industry Group

Member—AICPA Tax-Exempt Technical Resource Panel

Member—American and Pennsylvania Institutes of Certified Public Accountants

Board Member—FISA Foundation

Member—TEGE Exempt Organizations Council

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Do you have a hobby/personal passion?   
Traveling

Who is your role model? 
My parents.

What was your childhood dream? 
To become a maid.  I love to clean.

What is the best or most interesting thing about your career?   
I started at Schneider Downs as an Intern when I was in college.

What was your first job?   
Dairy Queen

Do you have a “motto”? (spoken or unspoken) 
You never know what people are going through Be Kind.  Always.

When you have an hour of free time, what do you like to do?
Relax and watch Netflix.

Do you have advice for young professionals? 
Find a mentor.  Be confident, yet humble.

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.

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