Protecting clients' privacy.

Annual client notifications must begin before January 1, 2003.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the related Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations contain restrictions on the disclosure of personal financial information of certain individual clients and also require the distribution of privacy notices to those clients. You are subject to these provisions if you are significantly engaged in providing individual clients with products or services for their personal, family, or household purposes (that is, for nonbusiness purposes) and those products or services fall within the law's very broad definition of "financial products or services." The term "financial products and services" includes tax return preparation and tax and financial planning, as well as many other activities. Therefore, if like many CPAs, you prepare individual tax returns or provide nonbusiness tax or financial planning advice, you are required []to comply.

Exemption sought for CPAs

The AICPA sought...