Thank you.

I don’t really understand why regulatory boards don’t consider this. Perhaps it would create a bureacratic nightmare.

I want my tax designation in addition to my CPA designation, gosh darn it!

Bruce said: “Attempt to educate the general public. Some news stories, some well-placed well-written ads defining what a CPA is and what a tax professional is.
The biggest problem with this is there is no tax preparer licensing. (Not to mention, the cost would be enormous.)”

and he is absolutely right. However who do you think should be charged with this responsibility? Are the AICPA, NASBA, and individual state societies not doing enough to inform the general public as to the duties, responsibilities and training of CPAs?

I think the industry should accept that it has taken certain missteps along the way and repair that before it goes evangelizing some kind of PR campaign tooting the CPA horn.

However when you consider that the competition (“tax professionals” paid $7 an hour to work at HR Block) is out there gobbling up commercial time to get a piece of business, I suppose a strategy to counter this might be a good idea.

At the end of the day, it is the CPA him or herself who can have the largest impact on the public’s perception of CPAs as a greater group.

And as we all know, the public doesn’t always get it right.

I found great humor in the above. CPA definition. I needed a laugh, thank you.

Having held that designation however, I know otherwise.

And no I am not suggesting that the study was duped, I am suggesting that those with higher incomes and above higher adjustments are of the mindset that the designation CPA is as Monica stated, people are of the belief they are tax experts.

A solution to this would be simple but unfortunately costly.
My idea would be:
Attempt to educate the general public. Some news stories, some well-placed well-written ads defining what a CPA is and what a tax professional is.
The biggest problem with this is there is no tax preparer licensing. (Not to mention, the cost would be enormous.)

Sadly as Monica points out in her post the AICPA has no tax designation “CPAs specializing in tax find ourselves in a bit of a quandary. CPA designation does not by itself qualify as tax experts, but there is not another designation available that does.”

There needs to be.

As for placement on the Roswell top ten Conspiracies list, this would fall way after the top ten, as there is no conspiracy, only miss-conception.

To that end, I would like to hear from IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, in when so stating the reasons behind Tax preparer regulation, with all the other phooey he proclaims it will help, to add, something to the effect that it will also put an end to the illusion that “ALL” CPAs are tax experts.

CPA’s should be able to specialize in taxation if they agree not to perform audits or reviews.

In Florida, that would mean I’d be able to shift 16 CPE hours to tax subjects.

There should be a CPA-Tax and a CPA-Audit designation if the CPA so chooses.

I don’t think the problem is CPA preparers, its unenrolled preparers.

That is precisely what the Hite/Hasseldine study reveals AND what Nina Olson has found.

So what do we do? A few options I see are…

(1) Change the CPA license requirements to more closely resemble the public’s perception. (not going to happen)

(2) Spend a fortune educating the public that “CPA” does not by itself mean tax expert (but that some/many CPAs are tax experts)

(3) Include CPAs in the IRS regulation of taxpayers (which is seeming more likely after Nina Olson’s report this week), where the CPAs must provide evidence of tax CPE

(4) Leave the system as is (to the frustration of many educated individuals like Bruce and Robert)

What do you guys think? Does one of these options make sense, or is there a better option my feeble brain has not considered? How does the profession best resolve this issue, or do we just resolve not to resolve it?

Let me get this straight.

The authors of the study, Hite and Hasseldine, were hoodwinked?

The CPAs who seemed to have done the returns in the study (by virtue of their signature being present on those returns ) were actually non-CPAs and Robert is correct after all?

In other words, since CPAs are actually having the returns prepared by their un-enrolled preparer staff (who says they’re unenrolled?), the study just thinks it’s concluding that CPAs do better than non-CPAs.

And only a naive and gullible person would not know that in reality the exact reverse is true – it’s actually the unenrolled preparers whose returns result in fewer audit adjustments and not the CPAs -and it’s all being covered up by . . . you guessed it.

CPAs.

(Apparently CPA stands for “Covert Preparer Alliance.”)

Does this one come before or after Roswell in the top ten Conspiracies list?

I’ll not question or accuse bias because the study was done by CPA’s.

I question the tax payers knowledge to understand and know a CPA from a “tax professional”. Yes there are CPAs that are tax pros and yada yada yada. Yes we know all that, and I commend those CPAs for getting into taxation, and preparation.

My concern, Those returns (the tax payers on those returns) who were completed mostly by CPA’s, Do they know the difference in a CPA and a Tax Professional?

If I was to guess, and guessing high I am, I would say of those CPA prepared returns, those taxpayers who could probably tell someone the difference between the two is 1/5 of the taxpayers.

Meaning as I seem to be rambling, of all those returns in the study 20% of them might be able to explain the difference in a CPA and a tax professional.

I myself have been in a large accounting firm (at the time, this country’s largest, and the fifth largest in the world) and know for a fact who is preparing returns, who is reviewing them and who is going over the final return with the tax payer. Of all the people who touched a return only one was a CPA, and only three of the partners there knew much about taxes. The others relied on the preparers and the reviewers 100%.

The taxpayer sees the CPAs name on it and assumes he/she has done the work.

Wake up America.