Richard Goldstein
Richard Goldstein

Richard Goldstein, a certified public accountant specializing in financial issues affecting the public relations industry, died on February 10. He was 74.

Goldstein’s death was confirmed by his wife, Judy.

For nearly 25 years, Goldstein penned the monthly Financial Management column in O’Dwyer’s magazine, where he discussed tax issues, mergers and acquisitions, business planning and other financial matters impacting the PR industry.

He took over that column from fellow PR industry financial expert Rick Gould, who’d managed the Financial Management page since this magazine’s founding in 1987.

In late 1995, when Gould could no longer write the column, he recommended to O’Dwyer’s founder and editor-in-chief Jack O’Dwyer that Goldstein succeed him. Goldstein’s first O’Dwyer’s article, titled “Eased Documentation Regs Are No Excuse for Lax Record-Keeping,” appeared in our Feb. 1996 issue. He contributed a column to O’Dwyer’s almost every month since.

“I have known Richard for thirty-plus years. I met him as a friendly competitor when I had my CPA firm in the mid-nineties,” Gould told O’Dwyer’s. “He became a friend and colleague, in the same suite of offices at One Penn Plaza. I often referred him as a tax expert. He was smart, opinionated and funny. I will miss him.”

Since 2006, Goldstein had served as a partner at public accounting firm Buchbinder Tunick & Company in Little Falls NJ, where he provided business planning, tax advice and tax return preparation services for privately-held businesses, with a specialized focus on the PR sector.

Prior to joining BT&C, Goldstein was co-managing partner at Tocci, Goldstein & Co. (later Tardino Tocci & Goldstein), which he joined in 1992. He began his career in 1978 at audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG, where he was stationed for 15 years.

Goldstein was additionally an adjunct professor at the Long Island University Graduate School of Business, where he taught accounting and taxation. He previously also taught taxation at New Jersey City University.

Born in Brooklyn, Goldstein attended Baruch College, where he received a BBA in accounting and an MBA in taxation. He resided in Staten Island.

Goldstein’s final column, which discussed home office expenses PR professionals can deduct from their taxes now that many agencies are working remotely in light of to the COVID-19 pandemic, was published in O’Dwyer’s November 2020 edition.

He is survived by his wife Judy, to whom he was married for 50 years, as well as a brother (Frank), two children and three grandchildren.