STUDY PREVIEW:Issues and Outlook ‘05

Of all leading issues, CPAs seem most concerned by "public confidence in profession."

A little while ago we ran a series of reports capturing the ideas of dozens of leading thinkers in the profession.

The articles included:

Bunting Sets Agenda for New Year
Could SOX Really Be CPA-Friendly?
Colleges Share Burden for Profession's Future
Too Much Work, or Not Enough People?
2005 Could Be a Banner Year for the Profession

At the same time, we asked readers to rate the issues raised by the reports.

“Public confidence in the profession” emerged as the single biggest issue, with 92 percent calling it “highly” or “very” important.


In your opinion, how important are these issues to the profession?
(Percentage answering Highly or Very Important)

92% -- Public confidence in the profession.
89% -- Work/Life balance in the profession.
89% -- Information overload of new rules, regs and standards.
82% -- Regulation of the profession.
81% -- The tax system.
80% -- Potential shortage of next generation of CPAs.
78% -- Regulation of business in general.
77% -- New Sarbanes-Oxley workload.
77% -- Current shortage of CPAs.
75% -- Americans' financial awareness and literacy.
74% -- Potential for new disclosures of past accounting misdeeds.
66% -- The Social Security system.
60% -- Upward mobility of women.

Meanwhile, the results of another question suggest that at least two-thirds of CPAs are confident that 2005 will turn out better than 2004. More on that here:

Speaking for yourself (your own business or career), how confident are you that 2005 will be better for you than 2004?
Completely Confident: 25%
Mostly Confident: 39%
Somewhat Confident: 24%
Not Confident: 12%

So, How’s your year going so far? Join the study panel and get an early preview of the results.