Last Friday, NJSCPA Executive Director Ralph Thomas spoke to about 20 newly promoted seniors and supervisors from the newly formed
EisnerAmper (congratulations, by the way). Ralph spent considerable time updating the group on two issues that should be of interest to all New Jersey CPAs.
The first issue -- a New Jersey state plan to require mandatory audit firm rotation every 10 years for all accounting firms that do external audits of state entities -- is a developing situation, and you can expect to hear a lot more about it from the NJSCPA in the next week or so.
The second issue should be on your radar thanks to an
alert distributed by the AICPA on Monday. The AICPA is asking CPAs across the country to contact the IRS to emphasize the burdens CPAs, CPA firms and businesses will face if the IRS fully implements its proposed Tax Preparer Registration program. The AICPA supplied a
sample email and brief background about the IRS proposal.
Ralph also discussed NJ's CPE triennial reporting period (the third year is 2011) and CPA licence renewal, which prompted questions from two attendees about their CPA licenses.
As I mentioned in a previous post, Ralph and I have conducted more than 20 firm outreach presentations in the past year or so. While the legislative/regulatory questions typically vary from firm to firm, inquiries about the CPA license inevitably come up at every firm meeting. Issues range from difficulties getting licensed after passing the exam, getting licensed in multiple states, reinstating an expired or (gulp) suspended license, and everything in between. Regardless of how a CPA gets in a predicament with their license -- forgetfulness, honest mistake, negligence or swallowed up in a bureaucratic black hole -- dealing with any of the above license issues can be frustrating to say the least.
My advice for handling license nightmares is quite simple: call us. We at the Society are quite proud of and like to brag about our vast array of professional resources, from our CPE programs and networking opportunities, to our magazine and website. But our greatest resource is the people who work for the NJSCPA. There's a lot of knowledge flowing through our offices and cubicles in Roseland that's just waiting to be tapped into.
Ralph, for one, has become somewhat of an expert on licensing problems. We're also fortunate to have several CPAs and Society members on the State Board of Accountancy who can provide informal guidance when requested. We can't guarantee every situation will be resolved exactly as you would like, and of course you're better off staying vigilant about maintaining your license and avoiding controversy altogether, but if you have a problem at least you'll know that someone is on your side. So give us a call.