AICPA Participates in Federal Trade Commission Roundtable Regarding Licensing Portability

At the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) July 27 roundtable “Streamlining Licensing Across State Lines: Initiatives to Enhance Occupational License Portability,” AICPA Assistant General Counsel Virgil Webb provided the in-person and webcast audience with the profession’s long-term efforts and perspectives on licensing mobility for CPAs.

Webb described the profession’s work to enact state laws that has taken place over approximately 20 years and has now resulted in individual CPA mobility in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam. “The effort to enact individual CPA mobility across the U.S. has been a tremendous success,” Webb said. He also noted the evolution of the efforts and explained that the profession is now working on firm mobility, as well.

The roundtable opened with comments from Maureen Ohlhausen, Acting FTC Chairman, who spoke about the Commission’s efforts to mitigate the effects of state-based occupational licensing requirements that make it difficult for license holders to obtain licenses in other states. Other participants in the roundtable represented organizations that primarily have been addressing portability through the use of interstate compacts, rather than state legislative efforts. They included representatives of the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Center for Interstate Compacts, the National Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Commission, the National Association of State Director of Teacher Education and Certifications and the Texas Board of Nursing.

The Washington, D.C. roundtable was organized by the FTC’s Economic Liberty Task Force.