Chair's corner.

• Author: Bunting, Robert L.

In my first CPA Letter column back in Nov. 2004, I mentioned how important it is for our professional body, the AICPA, to be in regular contact with the many regulators and quasi-regulators who have an interest in how we carry out our public interest role. In Feb., AICPA President and CEO Barry Melancon, Vice-Chair Leslie Murphy and I spent a full day in Washington, D.C., doing just that.

It is truly a tribute to the stature of our profession and the efforts of our Washington staff, led by Jim O'Malley, Tom Ochsenschlager and Ian MacKay, that we were able to schedule meetings at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Government Accountability Office, the Internal Revenue Service and the Securities and Exchange Commission on the same day. Not only were we able to meet with key leaders in each case, but they also invited from two to six of their senior staff to participate in the meetings. I'd like to share some general impressions with you.

I was expecting these meetings to be mostly "meet and greets" and that turned out not to be the case at all. PCAOB member Kayla Gillan, IRS Commissioner Mark Everson, GAO Comptroller General David Walker and SEC Chief Accountant Don Nicolaisen and their staffs appeared to view these meetings as serious platforms, during which we could discuss significant issues that impact the profession and our nation's financial systems.

Anyone who reads the financial pages of their major newspapers knows that the PCAOB, GAO, IRS and SEC have at times been critical of our profession or individual CPAs. Each of them at one time or another has singled members of our profession as "part of the problem" they have been addressing in such areas as audit quality, financial reporting and abusive tax shelters.

These regular face-to-face meetings between representatives of our profession and our regulators and, yes, our sometimes critics, allow us to share concerns about the quality of financial services, and at the same time clear up misconceptions about our profession. We have an extraordinary opportunity to remind the regulators that we are an important part of the solutions they are seeking, whether they are the elimination of abusive tax transactions or increased transparency and reliability of financial reporting.

Just as importantly, these meetings help us to better understand the regulator's point of view. As someone who makes a living as a practicing CPA, I want to be sure the people who make the rules hear...