Tax consulting firm taps Lazio as adviser

There was one moment of levity at a luncheon Thursday held at the Huntington Hilton to announce that former Long Island congressman Rick Lazio is now a senior adviser for Houston-based alliantgroup, a national tax consulting firm.

The moment was brief: Lazio said Dean Zerbe, an alliantgroup national managing director and former senior counsel to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, was a "fashion maven."

From a seated position on the dais, Zerbe lifted his shoe to show off reddish socks that matched his tie.

From there on, it was all business.

And that is what Lazio, a Republican who represented Suffolk's South Shore area for four terms in the House, from 1993 to 2001, is all about these days. At the lunch, Lazio said he and the alliantgroup are ready, willing and able to help small businesses on Long Island learn about the tax breaks and incentives available to them.

He is pretty much done with running for elective office, said Lazio, who in 2000 lost a race for the U.S. Senate to Hillary Rodham Clinton. He also lost a Republican gubernatorial primary, in 2010, to Carl Paladino.

"After a while, you get to the point in life where you get to do what you want," said Lazio, 54, of Brightwaters. Only one out of five businesses receive the breaks and incentives for which they are qualified, Lazio said. "That's unacceptable to me."

Then matters turned national. Zerbe predicted that for the foreseeable future, little will change with regard to taxes. "They may stay where they are, but they're not going to get any better" in terms of tax rates. Mark Everson, Internal Revenue Service commissioner during President George W. Bush's administration and alliantgroup's vice chairman, called for simplification of the tax code and said he is pleased there is an ongoing discussion of tax reform in Congress.

In terms of real reform, Everson said, "I think we're getting there."

Lazio, who has traveled far and wide since the days when he was a Suffolk legislator in the early 1990s, still likes to be thought of as a hometown boy.

"It's so great to be here," he said at the opening of his talk. "There are a lot of you I haven't seen in years."