While the legislative session has ended, the Advocacy team’s work will continue. The team works throughout the year on many issues locally and on a national level. We will be continuing to work on advocating for the profession throughout the summer and fall.

The Washington State Board of Accountancy (WBOA) is starting their yearly rulemaking process. As they propose changes, we will be monitoring and weighing in as needed. There are also several changes that we are anticipating and will be strongly supporting the WBOA to make. Those include updating our state Administrative Code (WAC) to be in compliance with the upcoming changes to the CPA exam. This is a technical fix, but one that is necessary to make sure Washington is ready to recognize the new exam. There will also be a need to update our WAC for the new NOCLAR standards that are expected to be finalized in the coming months. You can follow along with the proposed and finalized changes via the All Things Advocacy blog.

In addition to our work with the WBOA, we at the WSCPA along with our Government Affairs Committee (GAC) volunteers will continue to meet with legislators throughout the legislative interim. We have several requests from legislators for our GAC members to continue providing administrative feedback on tax proposals that did not pass this year. Legislators also seek GAC members’ assistance in better understanding the impacts of different tax proposals on diverse groups and entities.

We will also continue meeting with legislators to help them better understand the profession and what CPAs do. This will also help lay the groundwork for legislation we will be working on next year with the WBOA. This legislation would create a new license status in Washington state titled “CPA-inactive”. This would help bring us into parity with other states across the nation. Current certificate holders who have not completed the experience requirements to become licensed would be transitioned to the CPA-inactive license status. By creating this new status, a new option would also be available to current active CPA licensees who do not want to use the retire or lapse statuses. By coming into alignment with other states around the nation and giving more options to both certificate holders and licensees this bill would help move Washington into a positive direction for the future.

To stay up to date on the initiatives the Advocacy department is doing please continue to check the blog and watch for the quarterly Advocate e-newsletter.

Mike Nelson is the WSCPA Manager of Government Affairs. You can contact him at mnelson@wscpa.org.