December 2000

Regents Approve Changes to CPE Regulations

On December 15, the New York State Board of Regents approved changes to two regulations that impact continuing professional education (CPE) requirements for CPA licensees. The first regulation will now require CPAs to complete an ethics CPE course, while the second allows full credit for interactive self-study CPE.

The Regents’ approval of the ethics regulation will require licensees to take four hours of ethics-related CPE courses sometime during every three-year license period. The second regulation expands the definition of the types of CPE that receive full credit to include interactive self-study. Noninteractive self-self study courses continue to qualify for only one-half CPE credit.

The decision came after the Regents considered a proposal for both regulations. As discussed in the November issue of The Trusted Professional, the New York State Society of CPAs and Foundation for Accounting Education submitted comments endorsing the proposed amendments last month. The only major change the Regents made in approving the regulations as proposed was to change the effective date of the new ethics requirement, which was moved to Sept. 1 to give the State Education Department staff and CPE course developers time to gear up for the new requirement.

The new regulations now amend the Commissioner’s regulation section 70.6(b), which sets out the requirements for CPA continuing education. In its original form, the regulations did not require any ethics education of CPAs once licensed. As of the Sept. 1 effective date, CPAs will need four hours of ethics CPE every three years. The regulation requires those CPAs who utilize the 24-hour, field-of-concentration CPE track to take ethics that is related to their field of concentration. In other words, someone taking 24 hours of tax would need to take tax ethics courses.

“We intend with this new regulation to raise the sensibilities of the CPA profession in New York with a focus on New York State laws, rules, and regulations,” said P. Robert Fox, chair of the New York State Board for Public Accountancy.

The CPE regulations differentiate between self-study continuing education and other forms of continuing education by permitting self-study to count for only one-half the credit that other educational approaches (such as seminars or conferences) do. In other words, an 8-hour self-study course currently only receives 4 hours of credit for New York licensing purposes. The newly approved Commissioner’s regulation section 70.6(d), which becomes effective Jan. 4, 2001, would differentiate between self-study that requires interaction between the student and the self-study source. Interactive self-study would qualify for full credit, while noninteractive self-study would continue to receive only half credit. The Society and FAE strongly favored this change.

The Society and FAE have arranged for a 10 percent NYSSCPA member discount with Internet CPE provider eMind.com. You can access eMind.com by going to the Society’s website, www.nysscpa.org, and clicking on the eMind.com advertisement on the home page, or by accessing the eMind.com website directly at www.emind.com. EMind also provides a $20 credit for registering and has a special program providing free CPE to individuals willing to pretest CPE.

The Society’s and FAE’s earlier comments on the regulation when proposed, approved of both while making technical suggestions to improve the new ethics requirement. The comments were drafted by the Professional Ethics Committee and approved by both the Society’s Executive Committee and FAE’s Board of Trustees.

For further information about these changes please contact Jim Woehlke at jwoehlke@nysscpa.org.