TXCPA Protects the Value of the CPA License

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MEMBER GUIDE

Our Goals

• Ensure that the CPA license remains a valued professional license in Texas. Advance the CPA license into the future and protect against all threats to the CPA license.

• Protect the CPA from the risk of state legislators and regulators establishing professional standards at odds with national accounting and auditing standards and practice.

• Ensure that the interests of TXCPA and the CPA profession are well represented in the Texas Legislature.

• Protect the CPA license from the risk of unintended consequences in legislation intended to solve one problem but that inadvertently creates another for CPAs.

• Protect the CPA profession from ill-informed efforts to consolidate the State Board of Public Accountancy regulation under a generic oversight agency without CPAs on the governing regulatory body.

• Protect the public from unqualified individuals practicing accounting.
  
  
• Ensure that qualified CPAs are appointed and serve on the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy.
  
  
• Ensure that TXCPA and CPAs have an effective voice at state agencies and the Legislature in crafting tax legislation.
  
  
• Ensure that the profession continues by participating in the sunset process which requires the profession’s underlying legislation to be re-enacted every 12 years.

• Legislators listen to their friends and constituents. Making political contributions via the TXCPA PAC is important in having a voice in the Legislature.

• Ensure that TXCPA has a voice with the Comptroller of Public Accounts.

Our Impact

• Passed meaningful legislation in 2025 to create an additional pathway to CPA licensure and to modernize and individualize CPA practice mobility. Texas became one of the first states to pass pathways and mobility legislation to address CPA pipeline concerns.

• Passed legislation in 2023 to expand the state board’s 5^th year scholarship program to more candidates earlier in their education journey. Also, passed legislation in 2023 to allow CPA candidates to begin taking the CPA exam after completion of 120 semester hours.
  

• State Board of Accountancy Appointments – TXCPA collaborates closely with the Governor’s Appointments Office to ensure that the Governor has good CPA candidates from which to choose for a state board appointment. Good relationships with the Governor and staff mean that TXCPA has an influence on the appointments process.
  
  
• Good relationships with the Senate and House. When the CPA mobility legislation was stuck in a Senate committee, TXCPA made an appeal to the Lt. Governor, and the Lt. Governor got the bill moving. Good relationships are important in the legislative process.
  
  
• When TXCPA needs to pass legislation, such as CPA mobility or modernization of the accountancy statute, we need good relationships with legislators to author and sponsor the legislation and with legislators that chair and serve on the key committees.
  
  
• When TXCPA opposes legislation or need amendments, good legislative relationships with specific legislators are necessary to stall, defeat, or change legislation though amendments. TXCPA never knows in advance what legislators are important to an issue, so TXCPA must maintain good relationships with many legislators.

Past Successes

• Continuation of the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy (TSBPA) and the Texas Public Accountancy Act (TPAA) was the number one issue for TXCPA during the 2019 Texas Legislative session. Our top priority was to ensure successful completion of the Sunset Review process and the reauthorization of TSBPA and the TPAA so the licensed profession in Texas will continue unabated.
  
  

• When lawyers were trying to limit oil land men from doing some professional work that lawyers considered the practice of law, the proposed wording would have also limited CPAs tax practice. Because of good relationships with the bill sponsor, TXCPA got it amended so that CPAs were excluded.
  
  
• When legislation was proposed that would require CPAs that did fraud investigations to also hold a private investigators license, TXCPA got an exemption for CPAs from the requirement. TXCPA’s relationship with the bill author was instrumental in this advocacy win.
  
  
• When legislation was proposed that would water down CPA standards, through interaction with a committee chair and support from other legislators, TXCPA was able to ensure that the legislation remained stalled in committee.
  
  
• When legislation was proposed that would allow non-CPAs an avenue to provide services currently restricted to CPAs, through interaction with House Calendar Committee members TXCPA was able to delay the legislation, so it never reached the floor for a vote.
  
  
• When legislation was offered to exempt Texas governments from GAAP, through interaction with the bill sponsor and others TXCPA was able to get the legislation amended to avoid governments from being mandated GAAP non-compliance.