Confetti rains down at the close of the Maryland state legislative session. And local CPAs are celebrating.
The Maryland Association of CPAs finished up its 90-day legislative session on Monday night (April 7th) with five major victories for Maryland CPAs, according to executive director Tom Hood.
Hood reports:
They successfully passed mobility legislation, amended a Tax Preparer Bill to exempt CPAs and their staff, rolled back corporate income tax reporting requirements which were said to be the worst in the nation, repealed the computer services or “tech” sales tax, and prevented sales tax on tax and consulting services from coming up.
Maryland passed its mobility legislation (HB 1296) in the final hours before the general assembly adjourned. The bill passed the Senate unanimously and now will await signature by the Governor. Maryland becomes the nineteenth state to pass mobility legislation (Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin). Maryland CPAs had to overcome opposition by the Maryland Society of Accountants and the Department of Labor, Licensing & Regulation in order to get mobility passed. Our efforts were supported by the hard work of both the AICPA and NASBA.
The 2007 Maryland Tax Preparer Act (SB 817) was also enacted in the final hours of Maryland’s legislative session. This bill will require registration of all Maryland tax preparers and require an examination for those with less than fifteen years of experience. The bill in its original form would have required CPAs and their staff to obtain this license and be subject to additional oversight and CPE requirements. MACPA was successful in getting four major amendments to the bill which: 1) exempted all CPAs (including out-of-state) and their staff, 2) designated the name to be “registered individual tax preparer”, preventing the use of “certified” or “licensed” tax preparers, 3) required an independent regulatory-based examination for tax preparers (like the Special Enrolled Agent Exam), and 3) added a “safe harbor” language requirement that makes a registered tax preparer disclose to clients that they are not CPAs, enrolled agents, or tax attorneys.
“Our members were involved at an unprecedented rate as several hundred CPAs took time to write letters, make calls, and testify in Annapolis”, said Tom Hood, CPA, Executive Director & CEO. “Our grassroots was the key to our success and ability to actually work on all of these issues.” Our Political Action Committee, Legislative Executive Committee, and State Tax Committee had worked hard to craft our strategy as we entered the 425th general assembly in January and they formed the backbone of our efforts during the session. We also worked with the Maryland Chamber of Commerce who took the lead on the “tech tax” and the corporate reporting legislation that was needed to fix legislation that passed the “special session” held in November, 2008.
