The Uniform CPA Exam is the professional accounting exam that state Boards of Accountancy use to ensure that accountants are competent to practice in the jurisdiction. The American Institute of Certified Professional Accountants, or AICPA, describes a Certified Public Accountant as “a trusted financial advisor who helps individuals, businesses, and other organizations plan and reach their financial goals.” To practice accounting as a Certified Public Accountant or CPA, you must qualify for, sit for, and pass the Uniform CPA Exam. While some accountants provide financial accounting services without the CPA credential, accounting firms may require the CPA credential for employment. Many significant corporate and individual clients will not retain an accountant who lacks the CPA credential.
CPA Exam Pass Rates
The CPA exam has about a fifty-percent pass rate, which suggests how difficult the CPA exam is. Many other professional licensing exams have pass rates of around eighty percent. But the CPA exam is somewhat unusual in giving discrete passing scores for each of the four exam parts. Examinees who pass one, two, or even three sections of the exam may “fail” the exam by not passing the remaining section or sections. But those examinees may retake only the failed section or sections of the exam to receive an overall passing score. In other words, many examinees pass the CPA exam in stages, sections at a time. You invest a lot in your accountancy education to prepare for the CPA exam. You also invest a lot in taking and passing the CPA exam itself. Don't let misconduct charges or other irregularities interfere with your ability to pass the CPA exam and obtain a license from your state's Board of Accountancy. Retain national school discipline defense attorney Joseph D. Lento to help you successfully defend and defeat misconduct charges or overcome other CPA exam irregularities.
Who Develops and Administers the CPA Exam?
The American Institute of Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) develops and administers the Uniform CPA Exam with input from the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA). The AICPA is a private professional organization representing hundreds of thousands of Certified Public Accountants. The NASBA is the forum for the nation's fifty-five state Boards of Accountancy that license more than 650,000 Certified Public Accountants and regulate public accountancy in the U.S. The AICPA and NASBA administer the Uniform CPA Exam in Prometric test centers, on behalf of the state Boards of Accountancy. Thus, if you have a dispute over your CPA exam, you may receive communications from and need to deal with several bodies, including your state Board of Accountancy, AICPA and NASBA, and even Prometric test center staff and officials. Retain national school discipline defense attorney Joseph D. Lento to ensure in your CPA exam dispute that you are getting the right information in the right format at the right time to the right officials.
What Is the CPA Exam's Content and Format?
The Uniform CPA Exam has four sections. Each section constitutes a four-hour test, making the complete CPA Exam a sixteen-hour ordeal. Each section has five subsections consisting of multiple-choice questions, task-based simulations, and in one section, a communication-skills testing format. Uniform CPA Exam blueprints disclose the exam's content distribution among the four areas of auditing and attestation (AUD), business environment and concepts (BEC), financial accounting and reporting (FAR), and regulation (REG). Retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento if misconduct allegations are holding up your Uniform CPA Exam score.
Who Takes the Uniform CPA Exam?
Accountants desiring to obtain a license from their State Board of Accountancy to practice at accounting firms and clients who require the CPA credential must take the Uniform CPA Exam. All fifty-five U.S. states and territories maintaining a Board of Accountancy to license accountants will require candidates to take and pass the Uniform CPA Exam. You won't get an accounting license from a state Board of Accountancy without taking the exam. Applying to take the Uniform CPA Exam requires that you choose and contact your state Board of Accountancy. The AICPA and NASBA offer the Uniform CPA Exam at Prometric testing centers in all fifty-five jurisdictions and at international locations. If a state accounting license is critical to your accounting practice goals, including for accounting employment and clients, then retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento to help you defend and defeat CPA exam misconduct charges or overcome other irregularities in your licensing process.
Uniform CPA Exam Misconduct
The Uniform CPA Exam Candidate Bulletin addresses what constitutes misconduct before, during, or after the exam. The Candidate Bulletin warns, “The Boards of Accountancy, NASBA, and the AICPA take candidate misconduct (including cheating on the Uniform CPA Examination) very seriously. If a Board of Accountancy determines that a candidate is culpable of misconduct or has cheated, the candidate will be subject to a variety of penalties including, but not limited to, invalidation of grades, disqualification from subsequent examination administrations, and civil and criminal penalties.” The Candidate Bulletin goes on to define the many forms of misconduct, either during its administration, application, or preparation process, or even after the exam, that can lead to one or more of these severe penalties. Don't let Uniform CPA Exam misconduct charges derail your CPA licensure. Retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento to defend and defeat those charges.
Uniform CPA Exam Violations Inside the Exam
The Uniform CPA Exam Candidate Bulletin includes several violations that could occur within the testing center during or immediately around the exam's administration. The Candidate Bulletin warns, “If you engage in misconduct or do not follow the test center regulations, the test center staff may dismiss you from the examination, or you may have your scores canceled by your Board of Accountancy.” The Candidate Bulletin then lists these misconduct examples: looking at another examinee's answers to copy, allowing another examinee to look at and copy your answers, removing or attempting to remove exam questions from the testing center by any means, copying exam questions on any materials other than the issued noteboards, tampering with computer software or hardware, using the computer for any other reason than completing the exam, failing or refusing to comply with any test center staff instruction, disturbing others during the exam by reading aloud or other distracting behavior, disobeying test center staff warnings not to repeat misconduct or engaging in any conduct threatening personal injury or property damage. The Candidate Bulletin also warns not to attempt to have an impersonator gain admission to the testing room or to substitute for you after a break. Other conduct not listed that could constitute a violation include bringing unauthorized materials into the exam, attempting to use an unauthorized communication device during the exam, or communicating with other examinees.
Uniform CPA Exam Violations Outside the Exam
The Uniform CPA Exam Candidate Bulletin includes several other violations that can occur outside the exam testing center rather than during the exam, which may also constitute disqualifying misconduct. The Candidate Bulletin makes clear that the AICPA owns and copyrights exam materials and that “[a]ny reproduction or distribution of examination materials, including memorization, without the express written authorization of the AICPA is prohibited.” The Candidate Bulletin further prohibits “unauthorized assistance or collaboration on the Uniform CPA Exam, by giving unauthorized assistance to another person or receiving unauthorized assistance from another person, including in connection with preparing for the exam.” The Candidate Bulletin defines unauthorized assistance to include “providing information to another person, or receiving information from another person, about the exam, exam content, questions, or answers.”
Uniform CPA Exam Measures to Detect Misconduct
The officials who administer the Uniform CPA Exam institute measures to detect suspicious activity to charge examinees with misconduct in appropriate cases. The Uniform CPA Exam Candidate Bulletin warns that the Boards of Accountancy, NASBA, AICPA, and Prometric all institute security measures, including training test center staff “to watch for unusual behavior and incidents during the examination.” Test center officials also audio and video record all examination sessions “to document the occurrence of any unusual activity” to report to Boards of Accountancy. The Prometric testing centers also share with NASBA and AICPA officials “candidate personal information, including biometric data, test results, and photos” to use “in conducting security investigations of candidate misconduct or cheating.” If you face allegations that testing officials observed you engaging in misconduct, take those allegations most seriously. Retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento to defend and defeat those allegations.
Uniform CPA Exam Misconduct Adjudication Procedures
The AICPA, NASBA, and Prometric testing centers watch for and detect misconduct, but they don't generally adopt and follow procedures to determine whether misconduct occurred and, if so, who is responsible for it with what sanction. Instead, the Uniform CPA Exam Candidate Bulletin explicitly states that exam officials submit their evidence of suspected exam misconduct to the state Board of Accountancy. Prometric test center staff may first warn you not to continue with misconduct. They may also move you to another seat in the test center. Prometric test center staff may next terminate your exam and remove you from the test center. They may also confiscate materials or devices you bring to the exam. Prometric, AICPA and NASBA may collect and analyze other evidence of suspected misconduct. But subsequent adjudication of misconduct charges will be primarily up to your State Board of Accountancy according to its administrative procedures. While those procedures vary somewhat from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, licensing disciplinary procedures are likely to include:
- misconduct charge notice in enough detail to understand the allegations;
- the right to an attorney advisor of your choice;
- the right to present your own evidence and witnesses;
- the right to an unbiased hearing officer or panel;
- the right to a hearing to challenge the evidence of misconduct;
- the right to compel witnesses to attend the hearing;
- the right to cross-examine adverse witnesses;
- the right to a written decision on all charges;
- the right to a record of the hearing for appeal review; and
- a right to appeal an adverse administrative decision to the courts.
Uniform CPA Exam Misconduct Consequences
The Uniform CPA Exam Candidate Bulletin states the severe consequences that may follow a misconduct finding, some of which the AICPA may apply but others depend on the state Board of Accountancy's action. Those consequences include “invalidation of grades, disqualification from subsequent examination administrations, and civil and criminal penalties.” The Candidate Bulletin further warns that “[i]n cases where candidate misconduct or cheating is discovered after a candidate has obtained a CPA license or certificate, a Board of Accountancy may rescind the license or certificate.” If the misconduct included copying of CPA exam materials, the AICPA expressly reserves the right to “take appropriate legal action when any copyright infringements have occurred.” The larger consequences of misconduct can include lost scores, licensing, accounting jobs, and an accounting career. Examinees who commit serious misconduct will not obtain a CPA credential necessary for advancement in accounting practice. Those sanctions can produce other collateral consequences beyond the professional license and career. Retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento if you face CPA exam misconduct charges. Avoid the severe consequences of misconduct findings.
CPA Exam Appeals, Litigation, and Alternative Special Relief
Accountants seeking the CPA credential and state Board of Accountancy licensing may have other substantial rights not described above. Your state's court rules and administrative procedures may, for instance, provide for your appeal of an adverse Board of Accountancy decision to a local court or state appellate court. Retain national school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento to help you evaluate and pursue those appeal rights. Attorney advisor Lento may also be able to negotiate alternative special relief for you through various organization and agency oversight channels. Attorney advisor Lento has the national network, reputation, and special insight and skills to show disciplinary officials the wisdom of accepting assurances, imposing conditions, pursuing remedial education or training, or finding other compromises to enable you to pursue and receive the CPA credential. Don't give up. Retain attorney advisor Lento to pursue those alternative avenues even if you have already lost all other hearings and appeals.
Premier Defense Attorney Advisor Available
National school discipline defense attorney advisor Joseph D. Lento is available to review your Uniform CPA Exam issue. Attorney advisor Lento has successfully represented hundreds of professionals and students on exam, licensing, and related issues. Let attorney advisor Lento make the difference in your case. Call 888.535.3686 or go online now to retain attorney advisor Lento and the Lento Law Firm's defense team.
