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Vol. 18 No
On Balance is published five times a year by the Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants (WICPA). Change of address should be sent to: Membership, W233N2080 Ridgeview Pkwy, Suite 201, Waukesha, WI 53188; Phone: 262-785-0445 or 800-772-6939; Fax: 262-785-0838; email: comments@wicpa.org. Statements and opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the WICPA. Publication of an advertisement does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service by On Balance or the WICPA. Articles may be reproduced with permission. © Copyright 2022 On Balance.
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2021-2022 WICPA OFFICERS/BOARD MEMBERS INSIDE STAFF
Chair
Angela C. Thomas, CPA
Chair-elect
Steven A. Pullara, CPA, CGMA
Past Chair
Wendi M. Unger, CPA
Secretary/Treasurer
Lucien A. Beaudry, CPA, JD
Directors
Jeff Dewane, CPA, CGMA, CMA, MBA John R. Heindel, CPA Ruth A. Kallio-Mielke, CPA Kyle R. Stephens, CPA Stacy A. Stinson, CPA
AICPA Council
Ryan J. Hanson, CPA, CGMA Neil R. Keller, CPA/ABV, CVA
President & CEO
Tammy J. Hofstede
Design & Layout
Brett Stallman
Advertising Sue Daniels
Editor
Marcia Tillett-Zinzow
Printing Delzer
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Bowling Gift Card Package Raffle
For more information and to register, visit wicpa.org/BowlingNight.
Board Chairperson Year in Review
By Angela C. Thomas
As the end of my term as chair of the WICPA board draws near, I reflect on the past year and its successes and challenges (or, as I always say, opportunities). What did we accomplish, and what did we learn? How did we move toward our long-term shared missions and goals? This past year I had two mantras. The first was “Just keep moving forward.” I learned this from a fellow triathlete, and it has carried me forward in athletics and life. In 2021, I trained for and completed my third IRONMAN Triathlon®. My athletic experience helped me to bring enthusiasm and determination to the board table over the last year, and I will continue to show my passion for our profession in my continued service. My second mantra, “Adopt an attitude of gratitude,” has helped me through many of life’s opportunities, positively changed my perspective and led me to more successes. Whenever you commit yourself to something, you must be motivated to get it done. What is your “why”? It’s not always easy to answer this question. Sometimes going through the process is when you discover your “why.” One of the greatest lessons I learned while training for the IRONMAN Triathlon was that who I became in the process was more important than the destination. Take a moment to reflect on why you joined the WICPA. Are you getting what you expected from the organization, and are you ready to give back? Each of us has a skill set that is valuable, and I encourage you to share your talents with others. You could start by joining a committee or writing an article for one of the WICPA publications. The information sharing, professional growth and friendships that result are well worth your effort. My “why” was to help others discover a rewarding CPA career. I wanted to get back into the schools and help continue efforts to build relationships, promote the profession and fill the pipeline. One of my most enjoyable successes this past year was doing just that. I also attended each WICPA conference during my year as chair, and like everyone else, I missed the great conversations and networking that happens at our in-person gatherings. But I think we all can appreciate the WICPA conducting virtual meetings to provide safety for everyone. The outcome has been that members still could be connected to content and fellow members while earning their CPE credits. I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with many members over our shared interests and professional involvements this past year, and I will continue to do that. I had the opportunity to guide and facilitate productive group discussions for the good of the profession and provide leadership to the board of directors, the highest decision-making body in the WICPA. For these opportunities and the trust placed in me by our membership, I am sincerely grateful. It has been a pleasure to work with esteemed WICPA President & CEO Tammy Hofstede each month, and my gratitude and appreciation extends also to the many staff members who keep the business operations in motion. To our many members who have contributed articles to the magazines, advice via Connect or testimony during legislativerelated matters, I thank you for your extra efforts and contributions to the success of our profession. Before I close my last message as chair, I want to remind you of a couple upcoming opportunities: Don’t forget to sign up for the April 28 bowling outing, and mark your calendars for the evening of May 5 for the Member Recognition Banquet & Annual Business Meeting, during which we will recognize our Excellence Award recipients and longevity members. I will also pass the baton to the next board chair, Steve Pullara. I hope to see you there!
Angela C. Thomas, CPA, is the expenditure and revenue accounting section chief for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the 2021–2022 chair of the WICPA board of directors. Contact her at 608-318-3881 or angela.c.thomas@gmail.com.
WICPA 2021–2022 YEAR IN REVIEW
As we wrap up our fiscal year on April 30, I’m excited to share what we’ve accomplished for members over the last year. Despite the prolonged pandemic and its challenges, we continued to promote the profession; connected with members, including newly licensed CPAs; provided quality CPE; served as a resource to answer licensing questions with the new CPE requirement in place; started to hold some in-person programs; evaluated and discussed the pipeline issue; and continued advocacy successes that promoted efficiency, consistency and better business in Wisconsin and protected the CPA Exam and license in Wisconsin.
CPA pipeline
The CPA pipeline is the subject of an ongoing discussion among the WICPA board of directors, staff and educators as well as with other state CPA societies. We are continuing to evaluate and develop strategies for the implementation of a WICPA plan.
Connecting
An opportunity arose to promote the profession during an “Executive Insights” video, advertisement and article with the Milwaukee Business Journal. My highlights for the interview included the numerous areas of opportunity and careers for CPAs as well as promoting the resilience of the profession and how CPAs are essential to the success of businesses and the economy – both coming out of the pandemic and going forward. WICPA Connect, the members-only online community, featured daily news posts to our website; and emails kept members updated with current news, legislation and IRS updates. Connect has continued to be a valuable resource for immediate and timely updates as well as in providing members a setting to ask questions and converse among their peers, especially at this time of uncertainty. The private communities were also beneficial in keeping educators up to date with the significant CPA Exam changes coming in 2024 and financial literacy opportunities for their students. Although we could not meet in person, we continued our outreach to every newly licensed CPA from 2020 and 2021 to recognize their accomplishments and sent each of them a governor-signed wall certificate and some WICPA-branded congratulatory items.
CPA2b added a new column called “Note to Self,” in which CPA professionals write notes to their college-student selves to give them a glimpse into the future. And for some accounting humor, we added a regular cartoon, “Incremental Maturity,” from a CPA cartoonist to our publications. We hope you have enjoyed them! As COVID restrictions opened up, we started to get back into the colleges in late fall to promote the CPA profession to college students. Our Educational Foundation board also took a deep dive into scholarships and updated the criteria to allow students pursuing the CPA credential to apply for scholarships sooner in their accounting education. As we continue to explore benefits and discounts for services relevant to our members, we added new affinity partners: BankA-Count and LibertyID. The Reading Makes Cents program is back for Money Smart Week and Financial Literacy Month in April. This financial literacy activity involves simply visiting one of your local elementary school (grades K–4) classrooms, reading a book to the class and discussing the basics of money and savings. The WICPA Educational Foundation provides everything you need: a money-themed book, a teacher/parent guide and a gift for each student. Email Devin Yates at devin@wicpa.org to sign up today!
Continuing professional education (CPE) and events
Wisconsin is no longer the outlier of the 55 licensing jurisdictions that have CPE requirements for CPA licensure. However, as the new Wisconsin CPE requirements for CPA license renewal took effect on Dec.14, 2021, CPAs had numerous questions about the renewal form and CPE compliance and sought answers from the WICPA. I worked collaboratively with the Accounting Examining Board to address any questions, update the FAQ on the WICPA website and clarify the renewal process. We provided quality CPE in a virtual format in convenient time increments and on a variety of topics. We also were able to put out immediate programs on current issues, such as the K-2/K-3 filing. We were excited to hold the Individual Income Tax Update breakfast program in multiple locations across the state. Participants were able to attend in person or virtually. We continue to offer several free programs to members to assist with completing CPE requirements. The programs included a technology series and those on ethics, fraud, remote work and cybercrime, to name a few. Although we were not able to hold the 2021 Member Recognition Banquet in-person, I took the opportunity to (safely) hand-deliver the excellence awards to the recipients and take some photos to incorporate into the virtual Member Recognition Meeting. We are very excited to be planning our next in-person events, which are the Business and Industry Spring Conference (March 16), Bowling Night (April 28) and the Membership Recognition Banquet (May 5).
Advocacy: enhancing member success
We’ve had success with advocacy efforts and continue to build valuable relationships with legislators, leaders and agencies. Advocacy promotes the profession and protects its credibility, and it is a powerful benefit of your membership. Maintaining a strong presence in Madison and Washington and attending political events and fundraisers are critical to ensuring our voices are heard when it comes to legislation that impacts Wisconsin CPAs. In addition to offering WICPA members as a resource, we succeeded in presenting our positions on legislation impacting CPAs, their clients and the business community. These included the following: • We supported a rule for the Accounting Examining
Board to extend the 18-month window for CPA Exam completion for appropriate reasons. • We supported successful legislation permitting accredited higher education credits (such as from a technical college) that do not transfer to a four-year college to count toward the 150-hour requirement to obtain a CPA license in Wisconsin. • Back in 2020, we were successful in having language removed from a bill that would have impacted passthrough entity tax, audits, partnership audits, additional assessments and refunds at the entity level and sections related to the situs of income derived in Wisconsin by nonresidents. Since then, our task force has collaboratively worked with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (DOR), and both organizations have come to mutual agreement in developing new policy language that has achieved better public policy for CPAs and more efficiency for the state. We anticipate this bill (SB794/
AB816) to be signed into law in the coming weeks after this publication is printed. (See article on page 14.) • In November, meetings were held with all 10 federal legislators, with several members of Congress present during the meetings. Members of the WICPA board who are on AICPA Council and I represented the WICPA, state CPA societies and the AICPA on four topics, including COVID-19 tax penalty relief, filing relief for natural disasters, the fiscal state of the nation and the recognition of accounting as a STEM occupation.
Tammy Hofstede presents Joe Boucher with the 2021 Distinguished Career Award. Rep. Robert Wittke, Tammy Hofstede, Ruth Kallio-Mielke and Rep. John Macco testified and supported AB816/SB794 at the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means hearing.
Tammy Hofstede testified at the Assembly Committee on Regulatory Licensing Reform hearing to oppose AB857/SB824.
• In collaboration with the Business Law Section of the
State Bar of Wisconsin, we have introduced legislation to update outdated uniform laws for Wisconsin’s business entity statutes. The legislation would make clearer and easier to understand Wisconsin’s rules on how to incorporate; it would establish Wisconsin as a businessfriendly state; and it would allow Wisconsin-based businesses with a corporate structure to easily adapt to work in other states if they become multi-state or national.
We anticipate this bill (SB566/AB566) to be signed into law in the coming weeks after this publication is printed. (See article in the January/February issue of On Balance.) • Due to our positive and collaborative relationship with the DOR, a meeting was held with members of the
WICPA Wisconsin Taxation Committee and State Bar to discuss and provide input on the replacement of the
Secretary of Tax Appeals.
Stopping egregious legislation
The most significant advocacy successes were in opposition to recent proposed legislation that would have negatively impacted the CPA Exam, the CPA license and business in Wisconsin. With a strong, concentrated education campaign, several meetings with legislators and written and verbal testimony at hearings, we were able to show the detrimental impact the bills would have had to a profession like Certified Public Accounting and pointed out the unintended consequences these bills would impose on CPAs — effectively stopping this egregious legislation. • The most concerning bills (SB824/AB857) would have prohibited the Department of Safety and Professional
Services and its examining boards from requiring the passage of an examination as a condition of obtaining an occupational licensing credential. Specifically, the bills would have allowed for a change in examination only through the passage of a subsequent law. The law would need to be changed anytime a new exam change occurred.
Under the proposed legislation, the new CPA Exam changes coming in 2024 would be prohibited from being offered in
Wisconsin, and Wisconsin candidates for CPA licensure would be forced to take the exam in another state unless subsequent legislation was enacted. Moreover, any future CPA who took the exam in another state and wished to serve clients in Wisconsin would be unable to, resulting in a loss of talent from Wisconsin and harm to competition and businesses. • Another bill was the “universal licensure” legislation (SB469/AB902). The main concern was that the bill did not account for professions with an existing mobility system.
Moreover, the bill could have negatively impacted the existing system for CPAs of reciprocity that for decades has successfully allowed credential holders from other states to practice in Wisconsin. Furthermore, the legislation required a one-year residency requirement for any individual seeking a reciprocal license — a more restrictive law than the current Accountancy Practice Act in Wisconsin. • A third bill (SB232/AB217) would have provided
“provisional licensure,” which would require the
Department of Safety and Professional Services to create rules allowing an initial credential or reciprocal credential to be granted with provisional status to an applicant who has applied for the credential. Again, the negative impact on the existing systems for CPAs was not considered. Although we were able to stop these bills in the current legislative session, they will be back. You will continue to hear terms such as “universal licensure,” “provisional licensure,” and “removing barriers.” We recognize the efforts of legislators to assist occupations that may not have models in place; however, imposing the same laws on the CPA profession will have many unintended consequences for the state and the profession in Wisconsin.
Diversity
The WICPA and WICPA Educational Foundation continued our more than 25-year partnership and support of the Young Entrepreneurial Scholars (YES) program. The goal of the YES program is to expand opportunities for minority students and increase diversity in the accounting profession. We also partnered with the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) and James Madison High School to provide volunteers and mentors to assist with their Career Day and entrepreneur series. Thank you for your continued membership and your commitment to the accounting profession, for your donations to the WICPA Educational Foundation and contributions to our legislative funds, and for making these initiatives possible.
Tammy J. Hofstede is president & CEO of the WICPA. Contact her at 262-785-0445, ext. 4518, or tammy@wicpa.org.
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