Just perusing through the AICPA website, and followed a series of links to this article: Think twice about that out-of-state client! That's a bummer. I mean I sort of knew that you have to meet requirements in each state that you practice in, but I never really thought of the implications. Not only is it restrictive of the clients you could have, but it restricts your own mobility altogether - it means no applying for out-of-state jobs without months of advance planning and exam-taking and fee-paying. I'll need to get serious about where we're settling down once I'm done with grad school, because wherever I get work experience and take the exam is where we'll be staying!
I thought I heard a rumor once, that we'll be switching to International Accounting Standards within the decade. It was the last I heard of it, so maybe it's nothing more than just that - a rumor. I wonder how and if that would affect state licensing.
4 comments:
I guess anyone who needs a license to practice probably has the same thing, huh.
It looks like IFRS is still on track to converge with US GAAP and may be required as soon as 2014. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Financial_Reporting_Standards#United_States_and_convergence_with_US_GAAP .)
I wouldn't bet on the state-by-state differences to go away, though. Think about it--we already have an overall standard (US GAAP) and yet still have rigid state-by-state licensing. Replacing the overall standard with another one still doesn't change the fact that each US state wants to have its own (stupid) little laws and such. Personally, I'm a fan of one clear set of federal laws so that you can't go across a state border and do something legally that was illegal in the state you came from. It makes no sense to me in this day and age, but then I'm probably in the minority on that (states rights vs. pure federalism).
Anyway, pick a profession that requires licensing--massage, nursing, etc.--and they tend to have state-by-state requirements. Even if you can massage in one state, as simple as it seems, you can't necessarily massage in another. Being a CPA or the like is even more complicated and involved, and thus it's even more regulated. Lame, I know.
I don't know the rules now, but I know there is reciprocity between states. The difficulty in being able to get licensed in another state depends on the standards of the state you are originally licensed in. 30 years ago, if one was a CPA in California it was fairly easy to get a license in another state because CA had tough requirements. I don't know about Utah.
Thanks, I found this website that lists reciprocity agreements: http://www.uacpa.org/i/172NASBA_State_by_State_List.pdf
So is it better to be licensed in a "substantially equivalent" state, which I assume means it meets the UAA standards? Hmm I should do more research.
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