Chair's corner.

• Author: Williamson, Jimmy L.

I have been honored to serve as AICPA board chairman this past year. Here, in my final CPA Letter column, I want to highlight some developments that can make us all proud. I set forth several goals to accomplish during my term and I'm pleased to tell you that, with the help of many talented and dedicated members of the profession and the Institute team, we have made real progress in all of them.

A year ago, many practitioners were struggling to cope with numerous regulatory barriers that prevented them from providing services across state lines but that did not protect the public interest. So, one of my goals was to encourage efforts to improve practice mobility (www.aicpa.org /Legislative+Activities+and+State+Licensi ng+Issues). The AICPA and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy recently approved a new edition of the AICPA/NASBA Uniform Accountancy Act that includes revisions to the Act's substantial equivalency provisions. The notification requirement that was in the prior UAA's Section 23 had stood in the way of uniform mobility. The UAA now gives practice privileges to qualified individuals who meet the substantial equivalency provisions of Section 23 within certain guidelines. That's a big step forward, and it's not the only accomplishment in this area. We are also seeing further momentum among the individual states, and 10 have already taken the initiative to adopt the substantial equivalency concept.

Another promising development has occurred in the area of private company financial reporting (www.pcfr.org), which has been the subject of a joint initiative by the Institute and the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The needs of private companies and their financial statement users may be different from those of public companies, and those differences should be reflected in standard setting. The new Private Company Financial Reporting Committee held meetings in May and July. The committee immediately began making formal recommendations to the FASB on proposed and existing standards that will have an impact on private companies. It is hoped that their work will lead to more cost-beneficial financial reporting for our non-public business clients.

In addition, our profession enjoys the reputation and respect it has precisely because it is made up of...