Via AccountingWeb

"We have been monitoring this issue for several years and the AICPA will work closely with IRS Commissioner Shulman and his staff as they move forward. Clearly, we support the two goals of increasing compliance and maintaining high ethical standards. We have publicly expressed concerns about previous attempts to regulate tax preparers and we hope the IRS will avoid the pitfalls of those past efforts," said AICPA President and CEO Barry Melancon.

Read the full story here.

Via the Wall Street Journal

In a bid to gain better leverage to make sure paid tax preparers are qualified and ethical, IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told the U.S. House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight that the IRS is writing proposals that would require people who charge fees to prepare tax documents to be placed under some sort of licensing system.

The AICPA has announced that they are seeing success in their efforts to enact a uniform mobility provision in every jurisdiction hat licenses CPA’s.  Nearly every state is at some point in the process of considering the concept per a recent email announcement.

Thirty-eight states have passed some form of legislation allowing CPA’s to practice in other states without providing notification, and nine states have mobility legislation pending.  It is anticipated that 45 states (out of 55 jurisdictions) could have legislation passed by the end of the 2009 legislative sessions.

This has been a big issue for a while now, and this is good news for CPA’s who at least from time-to-time prepare returns for states other than the one in which they reside.

Over the past few years, there has been a lot uncertainty in the CPA profession regarding the privelege of doing business in other states.  “If I prepare a non-resident return for one of my clients in Illinois, am I going to be in trouble?”  These kinds of questions have haunted us since the California fired the first salvo, soliciting a response from many of the states requiring various different licensing levels for various different levels of service.

 Art Berkowitz has taken it upon himself to monitor the situation at his blog here.  Although there has not been much posted lately on the subject, the year-end should bring updates, so bookmarking this site may be a good idea.  His site includes a link to an excel spreadsheet he has created which lists all 50 states, and has links to their accountancy governing boards and what their current out of state licensing requirements are.