September 2000

Letter

Dear Mr. Sokolski:
I read with interest your column in the August issue of The Trusted Professional, particularly your reference to a special meeting to consider the future of the profession. I am particularly concerned with the continuation of the accounting profession as practiced by CPAs and the maintenance of our status as the most trusted profession.

Unfortunately, it seems that CPAs need some protection from themselves as they proceed to demean, denigrate and downgrade the profession primarily by trading on its past, and to a limited degree, present exalted status. They do this by engaging in sideline related activities such as selling investment vehicles, business management equipment, etc., not as fully recognized salesmen, but still wearing the mantle of the professional practitioner.

The AICPA clouds the issue by prohibiting the CPA from selling to a client he still serves in an attest role.

The CPA serves his clients as much in an advisory capacity as in an attest role. It is in this advisory capacity that he is truly the trusted professional. How can he compromise his professional position by accepting compensation from third parties who would benefit from the advice he gives is advisory client? How can the governing bodies of the profession, the AICPA and/or the state societies, countenance such behavior?

To which profession would the CPA belong, the most trusted or the "oldest"?

David D. Freeman. CPA
Freeport, N.Y