NO COMPILATIONS FOR CPAs IN NON-CPA FIRMS UNTIL MEMBERSHIP VOTE ON PEER REVIEW

The AICPA Council decision that would permit CPAs working in non-CPA firms to issue compilation reports was reported in the July issue of The CPA Journal. The article neglected to point out that Council also voted to require that compilation services performed in non-CPA firms be subject to peer review. The current AICPA bylaws, however, address enrollment in peer review programs at the firm level and would have to be changed to require CPAs issuing compilation reports individually to also be subject to peer review. The AICPA will ask Council at its fall meeting to authorize a membership vote to change the bylaws to require peer review of all compilation services performed by AICPA members

In a related matter, on July 1, 1999, the AICPA and the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy issued an exposure draft to amend the third edition of the Uniform Accountancy Act (UAA) that would delete compilations as an attest service. Only CPAs could perform compilations, but they would no longer be defined as attest services. The resolution passed by Council made no mention of the change to remove compilations as an attest service. The issue was discussed at informal, nonbinding regional Council meetings earlier in the year. The deadline for comments on the revision to the UAA was September 1, 1999.

Some observers, including Eli Mason in his interview for The CPA Journal Millennium Series, have questioned from the beginning why compilations were included in the UAA definition of an attest service. However, many of those same observers did not contemplate permitting CPAs in non-CPA firms to issue compilation reports. *

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