The profession's problems.

• Position: News&trends - Brief article

Smallest Accounting Practices and Their Clients Aren't Immune to Macroeconomic Instability.

A recent poll found:

The top two challenges facing small-business clients of small- and medium-sized practices are burden of regulation, followed closely by economic uncertainty.

44% of firms said that their business performed about the same in 2012 as it did in 2011.

22% indicated that their practice had fared worse than it did in the prior year.

35% of respondents said that economic instability is the biggest threat to the public's perception of the accountancy profession.

Fraud, money laundering and corruption (19%) ranked as the second-largest threat.

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