CPA profiles

There’s no doubt about it, the accounting profession is a demanding one, but despite what you probably think now, there really is life outside a CPA career. If you don’t believe us, just take a look at the lives of these three individuals who enjoy great success in the accounting profession and still find time to fulfill their other aspirations.

Singing Along with Howie: The Tax World’s Resident Piano Man

By Jay Dismukes

When he’s not running his own tax staffing company, Howard Kutcher performs another invaluable service—he lets those of us who haven’t a musical bone in our bodies momentarily pretend that we’re rock stars.

During his gigs, Kutcher, an accomplished pianist who unlike most other musicians is willing to share the spotlight, invites his audience to sing along. His act, “Sing-A-Long with Howie,” gives Kutcher, who hails from a long line of professional musicians, a chance to perform the music he loves for audiences who get to croon right beside him.

The performances include neighborhood gatherings, business events, birthday parties and social hours at nursing homes in Westchester County, where he and his family live, as well as other parts of the state.

Providing the audience with lyric sheets, Kutcher plays a lot of Billy Joel and Elton John tunes as well as 1950s and 60s doo-wop. The Beatles always make their way into his song lineup, too. Kutcher considers the Fab Four his biggest pop influence, and it shows. He’s attended 20 of the last 25 BeatleFest conventions.

His most memorable performances include his wedding in 1996, in which he played the Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” for his wife, and a 1994 talent show in which he played a Chicago song in front of a thousand people at the now abandoned Concorde Hotel in the Catskills. Of course, playing Barney songs for his three- and five-year-olds ranks pretty high on Kutcher’s list, too.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Kutcher, at the behest of his parents, took up the piano at an early age, starting out on classical and later switching to rock and pop. It certainly didn’t hurt that he had access to a stable of musicians whenever he wanted help learning to tickle the ivories. Kutcher’s grandfather blew trumpet, his Uncle Sam trombone, his other uncle, “Gypsy” Joe Kutcher, tapped the xylophones and his father Marvin, who played Kennedy’s, Johnson’s and Carter’s presidential inaugurations, was a drummer.

Not long ago, Kutcher did a Google search and found a Yiddish-influenced record that his father, who can still be heard on the radio, and his Uncle Sam did in the ’60s called “Tzena, Tzena.” Kutcher recently located and bought the record from a dealer in the Midwest.

“I liked being the hit of the party,” Kutcher. When he was young, he briefly thought about becoming a professional musician, but his father ultimately discouraged him from pursuing a profession that he said could be very difficult to make a living.

Though Kutcher never lost his passion for playing piano—he recently bought a seven and a half-foot Yamaha Conservatory Grand—he decided to major in accounting and received his bachelor’s in 1981 from Baruch College. While there, he minored in music and worked part time at a public accounting firm, a move that reaffirmed Kutcher’s decision to become a CPA and one that he recommends to any student who wants to know more about the career path.

After college, Kutcher soon received his CPA license and began his career as an auditor for a couple of small- to mid-sized firms, later joining the tax department of Main Hurdman in 1983, which merged into KPMG Peat Marwick. He went on to work for the corporate tax department of Sterling Drug, Inc., until 1988 when he received his master’s in taxation from Pace University. After heading the corporate tax divisions of two personnel agencies, Kutcher struck out on his own in 1990, forming what has become Kutcher Tax Careers, Inc., a recruitment and placement of tax professionals firm.

A member of the New York State Society of CPAs, Kutcher says playing music for himself or others, which he does for free or, depending on the occasion, as a pro bono service, has never gotten in the way of his career or family life. On the contrary, his piano playing helps him relax.

“It certainly came in handy when I was studying for the CPA exam,” Kutcher wryly noted.