The accounting profession faces a reckoning as leaders debate whether CPA licensure protects the public—or stifles innovation and diversity.

Accounting ARC
With Byron Patrick and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Licensure is one of the bedrock features of the CPA profession. But what if that bedrock is actually quicksand? In a provocative episode of Accounting ARC, hosts Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, CGMA, sit down with noted author and thought leader Ron Baker to ask: Should CPAs even be licensed at all?

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Baker begins with a history lesson, tracing professions back to ancient Babylon and the code of Hammurabi. A profession, he explains, rests on three pillars: a common body of expertise, autonomy with exclusion, and a duty of service to the public. By that definition, he argues, not all licensed occupations—such as florists or interior decorators—qualify.