This is a major disappointment…In effect, you are creating two classes of ABVs—those who have taken the test, and those who have not. I assure you that one of the questions that will come in deposition and/or cross-examination will be ‘did you actually take and pass the ABV exam or did you pick up your credential as part of the AICPA marketing plan to increase the number of ABVs’?

Likewise, “I think it is deplorable that the AICPA is running a ‘sale’ for a limited time on the ABV designation,” says a CPA/ABV. “The bar for becoming an ABV continues to be lowered and lowered.”

Are financial needs behind the current “membership drive"? Robert Harris, a managing director at Harris Cotherman Jones Price & Associates and Chair of the AICPAs National Accreditation Commission will address these specific concerns as well as any “misconceptions” about the program; we’ll feature his response in the first BVWire of 2007.

For more on the Sponsor Program, click here. To relay your confidential comments (which we will forward to Chairman Harris) email the BVWire editor.