Ethics for Alaska CPAs – 4 Hours

Alaska has changed three things about how its CPAs are regulated within the space of two years, and this four-hour course opens with all of them. From 1 January 2026 a licensee may no longer earn more than twelve hours of continuing education in a single day. From the same date, firm mobility applies to firms whose principal place of business is outside Alaska and which maintain no office in the state. And from the licensing period beginning 1 January 2028, renewal will require verification of residence in Alaska or another United States state. The course also sets out the substantial package of amendments the Board proposed in 2024 across the rules of professional conduct, licensure, permits and practice privileges, continuing education and disciplinary guidelines.

From there it works through the Board's regulations at 12 AAC 04 and the statutes at AS 08.04. On professional conduct, Alaska adopts the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct wholesale, so the Code applies to every Alaska licensee whether or not they belong to the AICPA; the course also covers what constitutes an attest function, the competency requirements on the licensee who supervises attest work or signs the report, and the quality control system an attest practice must maintain.

On licensure and practice it covers renewal and the certifications it requires; firm permits and when a firm must hold one; the practice privilege that allows a CPA licensed elsewhere to practise for one hundred and eighty days after establishing a principal place of business in Alaska, and the reciprocity licence required after that; the ownership requirements and the remediation periods available to a firm that falls out of compliance; and substantial equivalency.

Continuing education is covered in full: the eighty-hour biennial requirement with its twenty-hour annual minimum and four hours of ethics, the new twelve-hour daily cap, the ten-hour ceiling on micro-learning and the rule that any activity under one hour counts as micro-learning, how academic and non-academic hours are computed, which programs and subjects the Board approves, instructor credit, and the exemption available for reasonable cause or excusable neglect.

Two areas get particular attention because they catch licensees out. Inactive status: an inactive licensee must make that status plain wherever the CPA designation appears — business cards, email signatures, websites and social media — using CPA-Inactive or CPA (inactive), and may not offer or practise public accounting at all. Lapsed licences: the requirements for reinstatement rise steeply with time, including one hundred and twenty hours of continuing education and, past three years, a current AICPA ethics course and examination — and a licence lapsed for five years or more cannot be reinstated at all.

The course also covers the disciplinary guidelines and the conduct that triggers them, with the Board's own definitions of gross negligence, acts discreditable, dishonesty in practice, and unprofessional conduct in an investigation; the unlawful acts and penalties in the statutes, including improper use of the CPA title and the rule that a single act is prima facie evidence of holding out; ownership of working papers; and the confidential communications privilege together with the six circumstances in which it does not apply.

Alongside the Alaska rules, the course covers the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct across all three of its parts — members in public practice, members in business, and other members — including integrity and objectivity, preparing and reporting information, responding to noncompliance with laws and regulations, independence, the general standards, compliance with standards and accounting principles rules, acts discreditable, contingent fees, commissions and referral fees, advertising, confidential client information, and form of organization and name.

The reasoning behind the rules gets equal weight. The course separates morals from ethics and shows where the two diverge, using Prohibition and the Nike contract manufacturing controversy of the 1990s as cases where prevailing moral views pulled ethical standards above what the law required; offers the Publicity Standard and the Person Looking Over Your Shoulder Standard as practical tests; sets out the conceptual framework of threats and safeguards; and examines the motivations that precede most ethical lapses. Arthur Andersen at Enron and the audit of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities anchor the discussion of what the public expects of a CPA.

Four Alaska case studies apply the rules directly: a CPA who has resigned a difficult client and then receives a Board letter about that client's complaint; a newly retired CPA on inactive status asked to audit a charity, handing out an old business card that still reads CPA; a fee quoted as the greater of a fixed amount or a percentage of a client's tax refund; and an unpaid auditor holding client-provided records.

Learning objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

1. Define ethics from an overall and professional perspective.
2. Recognize the rules contained in the Alaska Board of Public Accountancy regulations and statutes.
3. Recognize the ethical standards contained in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.