What is the meaning of ‘Accountant’?

August 15, 2008

Here at Swordplay we often muse over the extent to which the professions are protected by the law. We note that the term “solicitor” is deemed worthy of legal recognition, but that “accountant” isn’t.

vince-cable.jpegWe are joined by Vincent Cable MP, who has submitted an Early Day Motion to Parliament which states: ” ‘Accountant’ is not defined or protected by law… thousands of small business and individuals, believing that they have engaged qualified accountants, are at risk from harmful and costly business advice from unqualified, unregulated, possibly uninsured advisers.” The EDM adds that “Legal protection of title is viewed as essential in professions where there is a substantial degree of public interest.”

There is some interesting comment on this issue at Accounting Web. Exception is taken to Mr Cable’s earnest plea by Tony Margaritelli, the chairman of the ICPA, who castigates the Twickenham MP as follows:

So Mr Cable I wonder where this ‘public interest’ actually is? Or have you been taken in by those bearing false witness.

This is not about protecting the public, this is about vested interest, this is about institutes trying to placate their small practice members after years of neglect culminating in their refusal to sanction mergers.

This is about institutes who have ignored the needs of the accountant member in practice for years suddenly finding a topic that may win back the hearts of their practice members.

No Mr Cable this is not about public interest this is about the CCAB Institutes and their members.

Impassioned stuff, but does he have a point?

 

2 Responses to “What is the meaning of ‘Accountant’?”

Posted by:
Mark Lee on August 15, 2008 at 2:49 pm

I’m on record as suggesting that the proponents of change may not have thought through the consequences that would ensue if the campaign were successful.

I don’t do this lightly especially as I’m qualified both as a Chartered Accountant and as a Chartered Tax Adviser.

My view is borne of many discussions with members of the public in connection with my Tax Advice Network which provides a support service for accountants. I quickly realised that that most non-accountants assume that all accountants are tax advisers as the words are thought to be synonymous.

I suspect that those who persuaded Vince Cable to table his EDM have missed a key point.

Let’s be honest. Who do most people,other than perhaps company directors, typically appoint an accountant? Does the client really care about their accounts? Or are they more interested in obtaining help and advice as regards their tax returns and tax planning? Private investors, the retired and many other clients do not even have accounts in the conventional sense. Yet still the majority of such taxpayers turn to accountants for help.

They do this because they assume that it is to accountants you turn when you want tax advice or help with your tax.

If this campaign to ‘protect’ or limit use of the term ‘accountant’ were to succeed, it is inconceivable, in my view, that only qualified accountants would be permitted to provide tax return completion services and tax advice. To take just one example, this would mean that Chartered Tax Advisers (“CTAs”)would be precluded from practicing their profession. That’s a fanciful idea that will obviously never happen. There is equally no prospect of CTAs agreeing to be described as Accountants.

Instead, the public would quickly become much more familiar with the distinction between an Accountant and a Tax Adviser than is presently the case.

And given the choice between a specialist in preparing accounts and one specialised in advising on tax, which will they choose to appoint? I think the answer is obvious.

In my view if unqualified accountants were precluded from describing themselves as ‘accountants’ they would become ‘tax advisers’. This would then help to increase awareness of the difference between accountants and tax advisers. And if that happens I fear that qualified accountants would lose more than they gain.

Posted by:
Architects: Legally Protected | Professional Services PR Firm on July 23, 2009 at 4:18 pm

[...] surprise to readers of this blog that certain professional terms are legally protected – indeed, we have previously wondered why the term ‘solicitor’ is deemed worthy of protection, but the term ‘accountant’ is not. [...]

Comments

Please submit comments to Swordplay below.

If you’re Joey Barton, attack is not the best form of defence

May 17, 2012

Interesting times, these, in the life of Joey Barton.

If the violence displayed by the QPR captain at Manchester City last Sunday was remarkable, his subsequent conduct on Twitter has been astonishing. Barton appears to have radically reinterpreted the notion that attack is the best form of defence, lashing out at all and sundry via a series of tweets whose ultimate effect is entirely self-destructive.

In the past 24 hours, Barton has accepted one charge of violent conduct at the Etihad Stadium but denied another. The FA seems set to throw the book at him, and his club has declared that it will deal with the matter after the result of the FA investigation. Conspiracy theorists might conclude that QPR’s management team and board hope that the FA ban Barton for so long a period (four months and more) that their reported desire to rip up his contract can only be bolstered.

What, then, should Barton do? Should he:

(a) Keep his head down and say nothing, or

(b) Issue a sensible statement in which he acknowledges that both his conduct at the Etihad and subsequent tweets have brought QPR into disrepute, and

(c) Add an apology to said statement, or

(d) Go to Portugal, log onto Twitter and tweet that the world is against him but that he doesn’t care because everyone is a moron and he’s worked really hard to get where he is and if anyone is nasty to him again he is going to expose their secrets.

The answer is not (d).

The moral of the story is that if you’re a loose cannon, when you turn attack into defence there is a danger that you will blow yourself up.

Gunning foglessly for clarity

May 15, 2012

A fine piece, this, on Winston Churchill’s gift for language and the obscurantism that goes with so much corporate communication.

But wait, what’s this? Could this injunction have been phrased rather more successfully:

Be concrete, not abstract. Use metaphors to get your message across.

Metaphors are, by definition, not exactly concrete. But be that as it may: there is a lot of sound advice in Clare Lynch’s piece and a revelation, too. We had never heard of the Gunning Fog Index.  But it exists, and reveals the age at which someone would have to leave full-time education to understand given text.

We’re pleased to display our own Gunning Fog rating for the above words. That of the Churchill speech cited by Ms Lynch was 9.698.

The Gunning Fog index is 9.585

Spin at the Leveson Inquiry

May 9, 2012
Leveson witch hunt

The idea that Lord Justice Leveson and his Inquiry’s QC, Robert Jay, are in need of PR advice is intriguing.

Surely their respective tasks ought to be immune from spin? Then again, perhaps the way in which they execute them is deserving of some communications advice. Either way, times have changed. A similar inquiry from yesteryear (and such do exist) would surely not have been accompanied, albeit informally, by communications advice.

Pictured courtesy of this Flickr user: a portrait of the Leveson Inquiry.