SPEAK OUT!

DEAR EDITOR:

This is a belated reply to the item on pg. 5 of the November issue saying that a survey showed that accountants ranked at the bottom as respects professional prestige.

You said that the value of this to California is nebulous because California doesn't permit anyone other than licensees of the State Board of Accountancy to call themselves accountants. Dream on.

Within the mind of the general public, "accountant" is a generic term, and I don't doubt that it doesn't carry much prestige.

However, the term CPA does carry considerable prestige. As a recent [CalCPA] speaker said, "People don't know what CPAs do, but they know that it's almost a Good Housekeeping seal of approval as respects smarts, honesty, and reliability."

So, there's obviously a two-part task here.

The first part is for [CalCPA] and/or the AICPA public relations manager to communicate to the Harris Poll people that we'd appreciate it that if they want to know the prestige level of CPAs, then they change the verbiage in their poll accordingly. Whoever undertakes that task should point out to the Harris Poll that it's to their benefit as well as ours that they be accurate in describing precisely what...