International Tax Specialist Relocates to Erie to Join Malin Bergquist Accounting Firm

ERIE, PA, March 4, 2008 – Joan M. Morgan, an international tax specialist for more than two decades, has joined Malin, Bergquist & Co., LLP, Erie’s largest and fastest growing certified public accounting firm. Morgan previously was a tax director for RSM McGladrey, a large CPA firm in Cleveland, and will be relocating to Erie.

The firm now has 17 partners and more than 110 employees in Erie, Pittsburgh and Greensburg.

In her practice, Morgan has helped clients solve sophisticated international and U.S. tax issues, including the following:

• Successfully resolved a transfer pricing dispute between a European-based medical equipment manufacturer in Cleveland and taxing authorities in the U.S., Asia and Europe, thus helping the client save more than $3.2 million in taxes.
  
  
• Helped restructure a Dutch-owned U.S. oil and gas company so that a foreign buyer of the stock of the U.S. company would achieve an accelerated return on its investment via increased depreciation, depletion and amortization tax deductions.
  
  
• Despite warnings that it “could not be done,” helped a U.S. company raise more than $10 million from a United Kingdom investor by creating a complex, layered corporate structure that helps the client finance operations and avoid unwieldy taxation, and also so the foreign investors could receive a favorable return on their investment while minimizing their exposure to U.S. taxation and reporting requirements.
  
  
• For a manufacturer expanding into China, Europe and Mexico, created subsidiary structures to minimize the worldwide tax rate on operations and repatriate earnings into the U.S. to reduce the risk of double taxation while significantly increasing the overall profitability of the business by taking advantage of cost saving techniques in the foreign jurisdictions.

She has been named to “Who’s Who in Executive Professionals” and received the YWCA’s “Woman of Professional Excellence Award” in 2003. She is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University and joined RSM McGladrey’s predecessor firm, Hausser & Taylor, in 1985.

Morgan’s decision to join Malin Bergquist follows the firm’s July 1, 2007 merger with the CPA firm of Diefenbach Delio Kearney & DeDionisio of Erie. Malin Bergquist plans to create 10 additional jobs and expand its space 15 percent later this year when it renovates its West Eighth Street office to house the combined firms. The firm’s expanded office will have approximately 20,000 square feet of space, including a large training room and other state-of-the-art amenities.

Malin Bergquist is the only CPA firm based in Erie that is a member of all three quality assurance programs of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, which are benchmarks for merit in the profession – Center for Public Company Audit Firms, Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center and Governmental Audit Quality Center.