Chair's corner.

• Author: Williamson, Jimmy L.

I am honored to serve you as chairman this year and look forward to keeping you informed through these CPA Letter columns. Let me first say that even though I am a member of a small firm in Alabama, I believe each CPA belongs to a family of 330,000 strong, skilled and very able professionals. People depend on us to take care of business by providing assistance that only we can offer. When we as a profession take care of business, we do the "Right Thing." We focus on our core values and mission of serving the public interest. And when we do that together, we are ordinary people achieving extraordinary results.

Now I'll cover my goals for the coming year. As always, the AICPA and the state CPA societies will work together to take care of business in four areas.

First, I believe we must ensure that our profession is constantly responsive to business realities in our fast-moving world. In particular, it is critical that CPAs remain able to deliver their valuable services across state lines without facing unnecessarily complex and conflicting state regulations. To identify and promote solutions to this problem, former AICPA board chair Scott Voynich is leading an Institute committee on mobility that will work toward making it easier for firms and CPAs to do business in multiple states.

I believe it's important, as well, that the profession address the financial reporting needs of private companies and those who do business with them. It's time to create a set of financial reporting standards for private companies, most of which operate in a far different environment from public companies. The Institute and the Financial Accounting Standards Board are now engaged in a joint project on private company financial reporting, including laying plans for the creation of a committee that will make recommendations to the FASB about necessary changes in current and prospective standards.

On...