Follow that Bill

By Susan Jacobson, CPA

It is with great enthusiasm that I report that Senate Bill 691 passed the full California Senate with a vote of 37–0. As most of you are probably aware, CalCPA sponsored this bill to bring California’s CPA licensing laws into conformity with 48 other states. This is very exciting news as the bill passes on to the California Assembly.

Existing law requires an applicant for the CPA license to comply with certain education, examination and experience requirements under one of two provisions—called pathways. Pathway 1 requires the completion of a baccalaureate or higher degree, including 24 semester units in accounting and 24 semester units in business-related subjects; passing the CPA Exam; and two years of qualifying experience (the 120-hour pathway). Pathway 2 requires the completion of a baccalaureate or higher degree, including 24 semester units in accounting and 24 semester units in business-related subjects; passing of the CPA Exam; proof of the completion of at least 150 semester units (including the baccalaureate degree); and one year of qualifying experience.

If it becomes law, SB 691 will be effective Jan. 1, 2014, and establish Pathway 2 as the single educational pathway for licensing CPAs in California. .

Why is this important? SB 691 would establish California as a substantially equivalent state, bringing its standards into compliance with the Uniform Accountancy Act. If California doesn’t conform to the national standard, a California CPA license may not allow you to work on your clients’ behalf across state lines.

Senate bills introduced in 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2008 tried to make the 150-hour requirement the sole pathway, but have been unsuccessful. Applicants for licensure have increasingly migrated to pathway two. In fact, 70 percent of the total CPA applicants in 2008 were under pathway two.

I take great pride in following this proposal to, hopefully, becoming law as I participated in the annual CPA Day at the Capitol in January and talked to my legislators about supporting this bill. You can track the bill online and also check CalCPA’s legislation update on our website with information from Bruce C. Allen, CalCPA’s director of government relations, and Jeannie Tindel, CalCPA’s director of legislation.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Presidents Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.