AICPA under the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Hey everyone, if you haven't seen the notice from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yet, I’m dropping it here for you.
It would be great if we could show up in force. If we want any actual say in how our profession gets regulated—specifically regarding licensing—we need to make our voices heard. 😉

Send your registrations to mbuhin@hgk.hr

See you there 🎉

March 20, 2018.
In Chicago,
Acting in our capacity as the AICPA within the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we are issuing a
CALL TO ACTION
To our esteemed members working in professional expert, scientific, and technical fields, specifically under section
69 Legal and Accounting Services, group 69.2 Accounting, Bookkeeping
and Auditing; Tax Advisory; class 69.20 Accounting,
Bookkeeping, and Auditing, to attend the first initial meeting and discussion regarding our operations
through the association, aimed at promoting, representing, aligning, and protecting the interests
of our members in accordance with Article 9 of the Chamber's Bylaws.
The meeting will take place on Friday, March 23, 2018, at 10:30 AM, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce offices located at
45 Main Street, Grand Hall.
We ask interested participants to please confirm their attendance no later than
March 22, 2018, by 1:00 PM.
Association Business Secretary
Martin Buhin, Independent Consultant

Henry Edwards33 said:Hey everyone, if you haven't seen the notice from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yet, I’m dropping it here for you.
It would be great if we could show up in force. If we want any actual say in how our profession gets regulated—specifically regarding licensing—we need to make our voices heard. 😉

Send your registrations to mbuhin@hgk.hr

See you there 🎉

March 20, 2018.
In Chicago,
Acting in our capacity as the AICPA within the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, we are issuing a
CALL TO ACTION
To our esteemed members working in professional expert, scientific, and technical fields, specifically under section
69 Legal and Accounting Services, group 69.2 Accounting, Bookkeeping
and Auditing; Tax Advisory; class 69.20 Accounting,
Bookkeeping, and Auditing, to attend the first initial meeting and discussion regarding our operations
through the association, aimed at promoting, representing, aligning, and protecting the interests
of our members in accordance with Article 9 of the Chamber's Bylaws.
The meeting will take place on Friday, March 23, 2018, at 10:30 AM, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce offices located at
45 Main Street, Grand Hall.
We ask interested participants to please confirm their attendance no later than
March 22, 2018, by 1:00 PM.
Association Business Secretary
Martin Buhin, Independent Consultant

Any updates on the licensing situation?

Betty King7 said:Any updates on the licensing situation?

Negotiations are underway, and they're finally opening up accounting sections. It would be great to get a few more hands on deck. 😉

Slowly but surely, we’re starting to make some noise, and everyone is welcome to join. There’s strength in numbers, after all. 🎉

Henry Edwards33 said:Negotiations are underway, and they're finally opening up accounting sections. It would be great to get a few more hands on deck. 😉

Slowly but surely, we’re starting to make some noise, and everyone is welcome to join. There’s strength in numbers, after all. 🎉

Bravo, Henry Edwards33, for leading this thread. We really need to be numerous, unified, and informed if we want our voices to actually carry weight. 🙂

I have zero interest in seeing accountants gather under the banner of a corrupt chamber. When it comes to licensing and growing the profession, this chamber has made it crystal clear: their only priority is protecting capitalist profits. They couldn't care less about the actual development of the accounting profession; they just want to shield capital. It’s the same logic you see when employers in the hospitality industry are forced to offer better conditions, yet the chamber suggests importing cheap labor from developing nations to work for pennies and a place to sleep. Then, they frame it as being in the "national interest," simply because some local business owner wants to afford a new BMW by underpaying staff.

We are looking at the exact same pattern here. If we implement strict licensing—requiring, say, 300 credit hours, five years of experience, and a formal license—then the compensation needs to reflect that. You can't expect someone with nothing more than a high school vocational certificate $1.75 and a company phone to manage entire financial operations while navigating twenty different complex sets of regulations, including HSFI and MSFi. Honestly, what are we even talking about? Accounting standards in this region are lower than almost anywhere else in Europe.

It's a classic case of collusion: those without any formal education have teamed up with a crooked chamber that exists solely to protect corporate margins. Now, they’re forming associations claiming to represent the interests of accountants.

Give me a break. They're just trying to pull the wool over people's eyes.

While the rest of the world recognizes the need to unify financial reporting standards to protect stakeholders in this era of globalization—not that anyone in America could actually pull that off with our current accounting workforce—we’re stuck in a different reality. In a world where borders are fading and professional expertise is highly valued (for context, a certified accountant in places like France, Switzerland, Australia, or the UK can command an average net salary of $35,000 to $75,000), the debate here is centered on what happens if some experienced lady with a cosmetology background suddenly loses her signing authority. It's a local tragedy of global proportions. Besides, there will be a transition period anyway, giving those without the credentials a chance to get their formal education in order.

Classic behavior from Americans; always standing in opposition to reason and progress.

The motive behind the resistance is clear: let everyone do accounting, and allow employers to continue paying peanuts for a complex profession.

And don't even get me started on the education aspect. The ultimate absurdity is that in America, an ACCA license isn't recognized, despite it being the premier and most respected association within the European Union. It would be like refusing to recognize a Harvard degree, insisting instead that someone buy a diploma in Mostar before we'll take them seriously.

The reason is obvious: how else would local associations and chambers make money by distributing licenses and diplomas under the table? And let's not forget that to finish an ACCA program, you first need a university degree followed by at least three years of intense study. Meanwhile, for these local courses, I suppose all you need is two months of prep work.

A lot was said there, but I’m not quite following—what exactly are you proposing? Which step are we talking about?

A group of us have teamed up under the Professional Accounting Initiative at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. We want to make sure our voices actually carry weight, rather than just sitting back and letting outsiders dictate our future.
Whether a policy is crooked or clean, good or bad, doesn't even matter at this point. What matters is that we actually show up and put in the work to move the needle, instead of just standing on the sidelines acting like professional critics who are perpetually unhappy with everything.

Nobody is out here arguing for non-licensing or trying to invalidate specific credentials. This is simply an invitation for anyone interested to speak up, cast their vote, and be part of the solution, rather than being part of that vague, grumbling crowd that complains without offering anything useful.

Trying to tear down an organization—whether it's the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or any other group—is way more dangerous than actually putting in the work to get inside the structure and slowly fixing things from within.

For what it's worth, I'm not exactly worried about the worst-case scenarios regarding certification votes, but I am firmly against elitism just for the sake of being elitist.

I've met plenty of people with incredible credentials—top-tier degrees, decades of experience, you name it—who I wouldn't trust to watch my dog, let alone manage my books.

I'm all for open competition. And like Henry Edwards33 said, I prefer clear articulation over vague mumbling. 🙂

Hey there—so, I’ve been running my own LLC since 2016, and I’m not part of the VAT system. Business is pretty small-scale, so I’ve been trying to handle the bookkeeping myself using some online software (starts with an 'e', but I won't name names here to avoid looking like I'm dropping ads). I actually rent my own space out to the company for $67 a month, which is all reported to the IRS, but here’s the catch... back in 2016, I never actually paid the rent to the owner (which was me) and I didn't record any sort of liability for the company. Same exact thing happened in 2017. Is it even possible—let alone legal, I guess—to go back and book those liabilities for 2016 and 2017? Like, retroactively? I was scrolling through some of your posts and noticed people mentioning how common it is to receive invoices from previous years... if that's true. If I can't go backward, though, what's the proper way to handle recording payments or liabilities moving forward?
Sorry for jumping into this thread without warning.

Richard Howard55 said:Trying to tear down an organization—whether it's the U.S. Chamber of Commerce or any other group—is way more dangerous than actually putting in the work to get inside the structure and slowly fixing things from within.

For what it's worth, I'm not exactly worried about the worst-case scenarios regarding certification votes, but I am firmly against elitism just for the sake of being elitist.

I've met plenty of people with incredible credentials—top-tier degrees, decades of experience, you name it—who I wouldn't trust to watch my dog, let alone manage my books.

I'm all for open competition. And like Henry Edwards33 said, I prefer clear articulation over vague mumbling. 🙂

I couldn't agree more...

I have my doubts about whether licensing will be the silver bullet we need, yet I struggle to see how else we can filter talent in this profession so that business owners might finally start trusting accountants again. There is a lot of chaos out there, and entrepreneurs are often terrified to hand over their documentation to anyone.
Just like Richard Howard55, I know women with incredibly high levels of education who can't even read a balance sheet properly, yet they breeze through filing GFI forms without a second thought...
On the flip side, I also know a woman who graduated from a vocational tourism school but has a genuine passion for accounting; she is responsible, stays on top of every regulation, and is an absolute master of her craft...

So... yeah... there really is a need to organize and push for change.

We’ve been putting in quite a bit of work through IPRH lately, but I wanted to shift some focus toward these other associations. In my view, being active on multiple fronts is always more productive.
My goal here is to encourage as many accountants as possible to weigh in. We should be the ones driving the conversation and taking the lead when it comes to regulating our profession.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce just put out a call for interest. I’m hoping for a strong turnout—hope to see you there!

First, the Chamber takes an aggressive stance against licensing, then they turn around and invite people to join their new association under the guise of being able to "express opinions freely" or "change things from within." It’s nonsense; everyone knows exactly which way the wind is blowing and why this is happening.

Bookkeepers shouldn't have a say in licensing standards. Why? Because 80% of them don't meet the requirements for stricter licensing, so naturally, they'll fight it. They should have a voice in how to simplify processes or improve business efficiency, but deciding the standards isn't their call. Their priority isn't advancing the profession—it's just protecting their own pockets.

It’s like letting car manufacturers or factory owners decide legal greenhouse gas emission limits. If you ask them, they’re obviously going to vote to increase emissions rather than cut them, because they couldn't care less about the "greater good"—they only care about their bottom line. But that doesn't make it right for the country, the businesses, the workers, or the profession at large.

I think you’re looking at this licensing issue way too superficially; what you wrote is just a drop in the bucket. I’m not even sure if you’ve actually looked at all the requirements they slap on you once you finally get that license.

Here’s my take: licensing is a bad move for a dozen different reasons. First off, the proposed price tag is astronomical. Then you have a massive chunk of accountants who won't meet these criteria—which, by the way, doesn't mean they aren't experts at what they do. Instead, this will mostly benefit a tiny group of people wealthy enough to stomach the costs and those required to jump through hoops for endless mandatory education hours (where, let's be honest, the seminar organizers make all the money). On top of that, you'll have an audit firm overseeing everything and pulling licenses (seriously?!?), and accountants will be forced to join yet another chamber. And don't even get me started on how hard it might be to renew that license down the road. Just looking at this list, we're talking about a mountain of cash being funneled into a few pockets, and there is absolutely no guarantee it will actually improve the quality of accounting or raise our status.
It’s honestly sad to see someone try to regulate the market this way. Even the European Union recognizes that free market services are valuable and provides guidelines to reduce red tape, often pushing back against unnecessary new burdens.
I’ve been in this game a long time and I’ve been posting here for years, so I’ll let my track record speak for itself. On a personal level, I work myself to the bone to provide the best, fastest service because I want to outshine the competition. It feels wrong to me that someone would try to forcibly shut out 80% of my competitors via regulation.😉

I genuinely wonder: who exactly thinks they have the right to dictate how this profession should be organized?

And one more thing—what about the entrepreneurs who are basically running wild in the market? Do they need special education, a license, or some other hoop to jump through?
They do whatever they want. Some of them haven't even bothered to read a single law because they think it’s irrelevant, yet they hire employees who end up depending on these amateur bosses for their livelihoods...

We could go on about this forever.😁

Henry Edwards33 said:I think you’re looking at this licensing issue way too superficially; what you wrote is just a drop in the bucket. I’m not even sure if you’ve actually looked at all the requirements they slap on you once you finally get that license.

Here’s my take: licensing is a bad move for a dozen different reasons. First off, the proposed price tag is astronomical. Then you have a massive chunk of accountants who won't meet these criteria—which, by the way, doesn't mean they aren't experts at what they do. Instead, this will mostly benefit a tiny group of people wealthy enough to stomach the costs and those required to jump through hoops for endless mandatory education hours (where, let's be honest, the seminar organizers make all the money). On top of that, you'll have an audit firm overseeing everything and pulling licenses (seriously?!?), and accountants will be forced to join yet another chamber. And don't even get me started on how hard it might be to renew that license down the road. Just looking at this list, we're talking about a mountain of cash being funneled into a few pockets, and there is absolutely no guarantee it will actually improve the quality of accounting or raise our status.
It’s honestly sad to see someone try to regulate the market this way. Even the European Union recognizes that free market services are valuable and provides guidelines to reduce red tape, often pushing back against unnecessary new burdens.
I’ve been in this game a long time and I’ve been posting here for years, so I’ll let my track record speak for itself. On a personal level, I work myself to the bone to provide the best, fastest service because I want to outshine the competition. It feels wrong to me that someone would try to forcibly shut out 80% of my competitors via regulation.😉

I genuinely wonder: who exactly thinks they have the right to dictate how this profession should be organized?

And one more thing—what about the entrepreneurs who are basically running wild in the market? Do they need special education, a license, or some other hoop to jump through?
They do whatever they want. Some of them haven't even bothered to read a single law because they think it’s irrelevant, yet they hire employees who end up depending on these amateur bosses for their livelihoods...

We could go on about this forever.😁

Government intervention in the accounting sector is entirely justified. On one hand, you have owners driven by the desire to pay as little as possible; on the other, a crowd of unqualified charlatans willing to oblige them because there are no entry barriers to the profession. The end result is a complete collapse in the quality of accounting outputs.

Quality issues don't just impact the owner. If they hire a poor CEO, an incompetent IT specialist, or even subpar sales staff, servers, or HR directors, the fallout is significant. More importantly, poor financial reporting has a much broader ripple effect—it touches creditors, shareholders, partner firms, potential employees, investors, suppliers, customers, and the government. As we saw with the Walmart situation, it can even jeopardize citizens' pensions.

Your perspective is incredibly narrow and self-serving. The real question here is what accounting education and the profession itself should look like ten or thirty years from now. If you believe training is unnecessary—and that the profession should be treated with the same level of rigor as a quick retraining course for a hairstylist or a retail clerk—then we really have nothing left to discuss.

The accounting profession is certainly one of those rare fields where regulation actually makes sense—even more so than in law. If you hire a bad lawyer, they only impact the specific client paying their fees; if that client wants to risk hiring someone self-taught or incompetent, that’s their prerogative and their loss. However, when an entrepreneur chooses an accountant, the quality of that work affects far more than just one business. A faulty product leads to poor decisions across the entire economy. When that happens, who carries the blame? Is it the owner, the accountant, the person who placed their trust in them—which is the very foundation our economy relies on—or the government for failing to regulate the field?

I’ll say it again: self-proclaimed bookkeepers shouldn't be the ones deciding this, nor should entrepreneurs, since their only real interest is the bottom line. We need licensing, education, and oversight. The specific format is open for debate, but the current state of affairs is unsustainable and frankly nonsensical—regardless of how many people refuse to admit it just because they’re happy collecting their slice of the pie and avoiding the headaches it causes.

Personally, I find it absurd when an actual accountant opposes organized education. You might expect that from a firm owner whose mantra toward staff is usually: "Why bother with training or extra credits? It's a waste of time; you're better off working overtime here for a tiny bit of extra pay instead of chasing professional development after hours." You really only hear that kind of talk in America.

I just want to weigh in here for the sake of clarity. I’ve never said we don't need education—honestly, I know plenty of colleagues who pour massive amounts of time and resources into staying sharp. My issue was specifically with the proposal for 160 hours of mandatory annual training. To me, that just feels excessive.

As for everything else being discussed, I completely disagree. There’s really no point in playing these "push and pull" games, especially since nobody has laid out any concrete details regarding who will handle this or how it will actually work. At this stage, the only tangible step toward licensing is the set of proposals from the auditing chamber.
The idea of introducing voluntary licensing is something most people would actually welcome.
When a business owner decides which accountant to hire based solely on whoever offers the lowest price—without ever checking if they actually know what they're doing—that’s just one more symptom of pure entrepreneurial irresponsibility.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce The call for the plenary session has been posted, and if you look to the left at the supporting documents, the proposed bylaws have arrived as well. It actually made it through. 🎉

I’m hoping to see a big turnout for this one. 🙂

I believe we first need to establish whether accounting should be classified as a science or a craft. If we settle that premise, our subsequent discussion will proceed without any unnecessary friction.

If we define it as a science, then we are essentially in a situation where hospitals have spent years being operated on by "skilled surgeons without degrees"... and every one of us knows at least one top-tier specialist who simply "learned the ropes" through experience, just as we all know someone with three degrees who can't even make a straight incision because they lack composure. So, what is the solution there?

On the other hand, if it is a craft, then there is no fundamental necessity for formal scientific education; everything can be learned through an apprenticeship, which is exactly how many people currently operate! In that case, what is the solution?

Therefore, I ask: what is accounting? Is it a science or a craft?

Furthermore, in my view, the greater issue regarding licensing pertains to the liability of the licensed accountant. I contend that the responsibility for the accuracy of a business owner's reports (the accounting portion) directly implicates the licensed professional in the responsibility for the underlying truthfulness of those reports (any potential manipulation by the entrepreneur), as the two are virtually inseparable. This effectively places the licensed accountant in a role similar to an IRS auditor or an internal supervisor for the firm whose reports they sign. I haven't been following the recent developments regarding licensing regulations closely, but if licensing is implemented, this specific aspect must be strictly regulated. It needs to be explicitly stated that a licensed accountant is solely responsible for preparing balance sheets and financial statements based on the documentation provided by the client, and that they bear no responsibility for the authenticity or accuracy of that underlying data. Of course, the practical application of such a distinction remains a significant question.

I wanted to point out that right now is our window of opportunity to actually have a say in how the accounting profession gets regulated. Whether you’re for or against licensing, or whether you hold a PhD or just a high school diploma, we all share the same stake in this—we all practice accounting, and the rules of the game are being rewritten as we speak.
It honestly blows my mind how little people care about getting involved. When it’s time to complain and play the victim, everyone’s an expert, but when it comes down to actually getting off your ass and doing something, suddenly everyone is too busy...

I'm just completely disillusioned.😢

Nathan Kelly5 said:First, the Chamber takes an aggressive stance against licensing, then they turn around and invite people to join their new association under the guise of being able to "express opinions freely" or "change things from within." It’s nonsense; everyone knows exactly which way the wind is blowing and why this is happening.

Bookkeepers shouldn't have a say in licensing standards. Why? Because 80% of them don't meet the requirements for stricter licensing, so naturally, they'll fight it. They should have a voice in how to simplify processes or improve business efficiency, but deciding the standards isn't their call. Their priority isn't advancing the profession—it's just protecting their own pockets.

It’s like letting car manufacturers or factory owners decide legal greenhouse gas emission limits. If you ask them, they’re obviously going to vote to increase emissions rather than cut them, because they couldn't care less about the "greater good"—they only care about their bottom line. But that doesn't make it right for the country, the businesses, the workers, or the profession at large.

Maybe try educating yourself first... for starters, look up IPRH and read their site to understand why licensing is a bad move, why most professionals back the Professional Accounting Initiative, why most European Union countries don't have regulated accounting professions, and why the European Commission has pointed out in recent reports that introducing licenses for accountants is just more over-regulation in America—and why they recommend against it. Once you've done your homework, then we can talk.

Accountants are actually one of the professions that leans hardest into voluntary certification—lifelong learning is just part of our DNA. In the last five years alone, major laws have shifted constantly—we're talking hundreds of regulations annually—so we're always reading statutes, guidelines, opinions, journals, and hitting seminars. But for some people, that's still not enough; they just want to squeeze extra cash out of exams, mandatory training through specific "educators," and collecting Chamber fees. I think I've made my point.

I hope to see everyone else on May 30, 2018, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Come out so we can elect some high-quality people who will actually fight for this profession. 😉

If the benefits from an AICPA under the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are going to be just as hollow as the perks entrepreneurs get from the Chamber itself, then why even bother having such an association?

You’re forced to pay them, yet the return on investment is zero. In fact, they’re actively working against you—you’re stuck with a mandatory membership fee, but you won't see any actual value now, or ever.

It looks like just another bureaucratic entity designed for endless meetings about nothing. What’s the point? Other than providing a convenient way for some Republican Party or Democratic Party cronies to hitch themselves to state funding? Maybe they'll even use the Chamber's budget to fund a quick safari to Africa to hunt buffalo, much like their former president did. Honestly, the whole thing should be dismantled—the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, all its sub-associations, the lot. Abolish the membership fees entirely. If these organizations actually provided anything useful, people wouldn't be fleeing the country in droves. I don't see how this new association could possibly be any different; even if the people involved have the best intentions, they aren't going to achieve anything of substance.

Anyone lacking specific education—say, an economics degree or a specialized accounting track in high school—plus a requisite number of years of professional experience, should be legally barred from practicing accounting. Period. If practicing law without a license is both illegal and punishable for everyone except lawyers, why on earth would we allow a hair stylist or a chimney sweep to handle accounting? Can I suddenly decide to perform neurosurgery just because I *think* I know what I'm doing?

And let’s stop with this tired narrative that professionals with actual degrees are incompetent while these less-educated outsiders are somehow "visionaries." You can take that argument and throw it in the trash. I’ve worked with both groups, and in over 95% of cases, those with legitimate training—I'm talking real vocational schooling or a university degree, not some two-week crash course—are superior to those coming from outside the field, regardless of what other degree they might hold. There are exceptions, sure, but they're rare. Usually, the professionals are better.

Sure, a trained accountant might mechanically record entries correctly most of the time, but the second a non-standard situation arises, you realize they have no clue what they’re doing and can't see the big picture. Accounting isn't a skill you pick up in a fortnight. And for heaven's sake, people, stop conflating everything with accounting. Law is not accounting, no matter how many statutes and regulations an accountant memorizes every single day.