Pecarich earns Dixon award.

CalCPA member Pamela J. Pecarich is this year's recipient of the Arthur J. Dixon Memorial Award, the highest award given by the accounting profession in the area of taxation. The award is given by the Tax Division of the AICPA.

Among the positions Pecarich has held are chief policy analyst for the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee; staff director for the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight; director of the Office of Policy and Planning at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; and committee staff consultant to the California State Assembly's Committee on Revenue and Taxation.

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She also has served as a member of the IRS Commissioner's Advisory Group.

As a partner and director of tax policy for Coopers & Lybrand LLP, National Tax Services, Pecarich had principal responsibility for monitoring and advising the firm and its clients on emerging federal tax issues and tax legislation.

For nearly two decades, Pecarich has been a volunteer leader with the AICPA. Most notably, she was chair of the AICPA Tax Executive Committee. She was also chair of the Tax Legislative Liaison Committee, the Tax Shelter Issues Task Force and the 2005 task force that updated the AICPA's report on fundamental tax reform in 2005.

Pecarich serves as president of the League of Women Voters in Ventura County.

The annual award, established in 1981, is in honor of Arthur J. Dixon, a CPA who had an outstanding record of service to the tax profession and to the AICPA Tax Division. Dixon was chair of the AICPA's Tax Executive Committee from 1977 to 1980 and posthumously won the first award named in his honor.