Harvey Peeler

Peeler: “During this time of economic pain, we need someone who deals with working families and small businesses on a daily basis.”

Gaffney, SC – South Carolina Senate Majority Leader Harvey Peeler today announced his intention to appoint local accountant Ben Kochenower to the South Carolina Tax Realignment Commission (TRAC). Kochenower is the CEO of Cline Brandt Kochenower & Company, an accounting firm with offices in Boiling Springs and Gaffney, South Carolina. He has spent his career helping families, small businesses, and non-profit organizations maneuver through our state’s complicated tax code.

While South Carolina’s unemployment rate remains one of the highest in the nation, many are blaming our state’s antiquated and piecemealed tax structure as the primary cause of our woes. Called “loophole-riddled” and a “special-interest driven tax system” by The State newspaper, the tax code is an obstruction to economic growth in South Carolina.

The TRAC Commission is modeled after the federal BRACC program. In an attempt to overhaul the tax code while removing the political pressures from the process, an independent commission of financial and economic experts was created to assess the effectiveness of the current tax system structure and to provide recommendations for changes to the General Assembly.

Ben Kochenower has been a CPA in Gaffney and Spartanburg since 1975. He has extensive experience working with governmental, non-profit and commercial clients. He is a member of the Government Finance Officers Association of South Carolina and holds licenses in Michigan, Maryland, Indiana, Tennessee and Massachusetts as well as North and South Carolina, and he is also a Certified Fraud Examiner and a Certified Valuation Analyst.

“Ben hasn’t spent his career in Columbia surrounded by politics. He’s been working in small town South Carolina giving financial advice to working families and small businessmen facing too much government red tape and an outdated tax structure. I’m appointing Ben because he’ll bring a much needed common sense approach to the commission,” Senator Peeler said in making the appointment.

Peeler continued “during this time of economic pain, we need someone who deals with working families and small businesses on a daily basis.”