Bootleggers, Baptists, and CPAs: Rethinking Licensure in the Profession | ARC

The accounting profession faces a reckoning as leaders debate whether CPA licensure protects the public—or stifles innovation and diversity.Accounting ARCWith Byron Patrick and Donny ShimamotoCenter for Accounting TransformationLicensure 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? MORE Accounting ARC: CPA Firm Ownership Under Fire | Walking Violation: When Showing Your CPA Gets You in Trouble | Audit Bags to TikTok Tags, Gen Z Talks Success | Students Challenge Accounting's Traditional Career Path | True Grit: Recognizing Struggles That Shape Our Successes | More Admins, Fewer Students, No Plan | What Career Advice Gets Wrong for Gen Z - And How to Fix It |Your Identity is Not a Liability | What Happens in Vegas… Gets Reported on a Tax Return | Burnout, Be Gone: Accounting Needs a Boundary Breakthrough | The Ultimate Business Hack You’re Probably Ignoring | Resilience, Real Talk, and the Road to Mental Wellness | Blockchain Could Still Reshape Accounting | What Gen Z Wants from Business | Firm Differentiation Depends Upon Client Service 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.