CPA Leader Wants to Pay Accountants More, Align State Reforms

Higher wages are the key to turning the tide in the accounting profession’s uphill battle to attract more workers to its ranks, according to the new leader of its largest industry group.

To draw future workers, Mark Koziel, who began his new role as chief executive officer of the American Institute of CPAs in January, argues the profession should not only boost starting wages but also smooth the pace of young accountants’ workloads, often condensed into busy tax and audit seasons.

These are challenges some of the largest firms have begun to address, but Koziel called on all CPAs to get involved.

“What do we need to do to make it better? And how do we make this sustainable for future generations,” Koziel said in an interview this week. “We all have a stake in that story.”

Koziel, who also leads the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, takes the helm of the industry group as the profession faces a shrinking workforce.

Generational shifts—retiring Baby Boomers and smaller cohorts of college students—have compounded the profession’s struggles to attract new recruits. Accounting also often loses out to popular careers in science and technology, fields that only require a four-year degree.

To combat the trend, accountants have pressed legislators in at least 14 states including Texas and Georgia to deliver more flexible education requirements and ease the path to the CPA for future recruits. Ohio’s governor became the first to sign licensing reforms into law last month.

Koziel acknowledges that the states have gotten ahead of the profession’s trade group, which had pitched a different set of reforms.

“The train’s left the station,” Koziel said. “There’s been support for alternative pathways.”

Now Koziel aims to minimize differences among how states approach their reforms and to preserve the ability of CPAs to work across state lines without applying for multiple credentials—carrying forward a goal of the trade group under his predecessor, Barry Melancon.

Koziel previously led an international network of independent accounting firms called Allinial. He spent 14 years at the AICPA working directly with firms and started his public accounting career in Buffalo, N.Y.

“The more we can be in alignment on all of these, the better the profession is going to be served,” he said. “I want to minimize confusion for our members.”

Audit Regulator in Flux

The AICPA is also gearing up to help its members adjust to possible reforms at the US audit regulator, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, especially if its work were taken over by the SEC.

The profession must be prepared to work with any regulator whether it’s the PCAOB or the Securities and Exchange Commission, Koziel said. Currently, the SEC approves the budget and other actions by the PCAOB, but it is a standalone entity.

His remarks fall far short of an endorsement of the embattled board’s role overseeing the audit industry.

“The public interest is our primary mission and we will work with whoever the oversight agency is to the profession,” he said in a follow-up statement.

Republicans in Congress have previously pitched legislation that would eliminate the PCAOB and President Donald Trump proposed axing the Enron-era regulator during his first term.

Trump’s pick to lead the SEC, Paul Atkins, criticized the board during his previous tenure on the commission. If confirmed, Atkins is expected to dial back the board’s aggressive enforcement and its recent rule-writing work.

Congress created the board in 2002, regulating the audit industry for the first time, in the wake of a series of accounting scandals that toppled Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc.

Historically, the board relied on routine inspections to ensure auditors meet basic standards, largely leaving in place rules written by the accounting industry. But Board Chair Erica Williams aimed to set a higher bar for auditors by rewriting an outdated rulebook and deploying a more rigorous inspection enforcement regime.

The AICPA has warned the audit board that some of its efforts under Williams to revise its rulebook could force small- and mid-sized firms to drop their public company audit clients. The professional group maintains a separate set of audit standards for private businesses and non-profits in the US.

Despite the potential for an overhauled oversight approach, Koziel cautioned that enforcement of auditors might not change much. “There needs to be oversight and enforcement over public company work.”