America is short on certified public accountants. India should bridge the gap

livemint.com:

Financial Times columnist Stephen Foley wrote recently that one response from business has been to outsource more accounting work, particularly to India. Another response has been to raise salaries and hasten promotions. However, the demand for accountants continues to rise in the tech and financial sectors, and is bound to grow in the area of carbon accounting as well.

This induces people with accounting knowledge to take up lucrative jobs in these industries, further shrinking the supply of CPAs. India could potentially gain from this development, both by absorbing more outsourced work and by sending qualified people to the US to become CPAs. A CPA is like an Indian chartered accountant.

According to the US government’s Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS), “Public accountants work with financial documents that clients are required by law to disclose, such as tax forms and financial statements that corporations must provide to current and potential investors. Some public accountants concentrate on tax matters, advising corporations about the tax advantages of certain business decisions or preparing individual income tax returns." Other public accountants specialise in forensic accounting, and offer advisory services on cash flow, insurance, investment, retirement, financing children’s education or buying a home. All public accountants are not CPAs.

That C, which stands for certified, makes a big difference. CPAs are certified by the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, follow their code of conduct, and are required to put in a certain number of hours of continuous learning throughout their career. The AICPA demands 150 credit hours of college, in contrast to the standard 120 credit hours, as a