Main Street Practitioner Blog

WAA Initiates Change to Safe-Harbor Language for Non-Licensed Accountants

The NSA state affiliate, Washington Association of Accountants, has once again been successful in protecting the rights of non-licensed accountants to prepare financial statements under safe harbor language.

Back in 1983, legislation was proposed that would have eliminated the right for non-licensed (non-CPA) accountants to prepare financial statements for small businesses.  Hard work, a tremendous amount of leadership, and cooperation between WAA and IBA (Independent Business Association) stopped the legislation and protected the rights of non-licensed accountants (we retained the right to call ourselves accountants).

Recently, WAA and IBA joined together at the latest Washington State Board of Accountancy meeting to present testimony on newly proposed changes to the safe harbor language that would have been damaging to non-licensed accountants and extremely confusing for small business owners.

Over the past year the Washington State Board of Accountancy was in the process of reviewing its Safe Harbor policy and as  part of their review was considering language in use by other states; namely California. California’s use of restrictive and confusing language was not seen as beneficial for the small businesses of Washington. The leadership of WAA, President Jerry Gintz directed the Legislative Committee, chaired by Kathy Hettick and Gene Bell to work together with Gary Smith of IBA to contact the Executive Director of the Board of Accountancy, Rick Sweeney, to offer assistance with the review of the safe harbor language and with drafting verbiage that was protective of our right to practice and just as important, helping to assure that the small business owner would be protected and could continue to rely on the expertise of their accountant.

WAA’s Gene Bell and IBA’s Gary Smith attended the Board meeting, on October 17th and were successful in this endeavor. It is a credit to the Board of Accountancy that a very favorable rewrite of the safe harbor language was accomplished in short order and agreed upon by all in attendance.
 
Read the full release from WAA