OAR 801-010-0065: Qualifications for Licensure

(1) Requirements . Applicants for the license of Certified Public Accountant must submit the following: (a) A completed application in a form prescribed by the Board; (b) Evidence of passing all sections of the CPA exam with a score of 75 or above; (c) Evidence of passing an ethics exam that has been adopted by the Board with a score of 90 or above; and (d) Evidence of both graduation from a college or university that is accredited, and experience as follows: (A) Show satisfactory evidence that the candidate has obtained a baccalaureate degree and completed the courses referenced in OAR 801-010-0050(3) and has a minimum of 24 months and at least 4,000 hours of supervised employment experience; (B) Show satisfactory evidence that the candidate has obtained a master’s degree and completed the courses as referenced in OAR 801-010-0050(3) and has a minimum of 12 months and at least 2,000 hours of supervised employment experience; or (C) Show satisfactory evidence that the candidates has obtained a baccalaureate degree or higher and has completed 150 semester hours or 225 quarter hours of college education that meet the requirements in OAR 801-010-0050(3) and have a minimum of 12 months and at least 2,000 hours of supervised employment experience. (e) Applicants for the CPA license must obtain the employment experience in each of the seven competencies as described in sections (2) through (4) of this rule. (f) Except as provided in section six (6) of this rule, the experience, ethics and examination requirements must be obtained and completed within eight years immediately preceding the date the application for license was received at the Board office. (2) Experience Requirements : (a) Supervisor Licensee is a person who qualifies under this rule as a supervisor for the purpose of verifying the experience requirement of an applicant for a CPA license under OAR 801-010-0065 or the experience requirement of an applicant for a public accountant license under 801-010-0100. (b) To qualify as a supervisor licensee the person providing supervision must hold an active CPA license issued by any state or a PA license issued under ORS 673.100 in good standing during the period of supervision and for at least five of the past seven years immediately prior to such supervision. Notwithstanding, a public accountant (PA) may not act as a supervising licensee or verify an applicant’s experience relating to attestation services. (c) A supervisor licensee must provide direct supervision over an applicant and shall certify to the Board whether or not the applicant has gained qualifying experience under this rule. (d) “Direct supervision” as used in this rule means that there is a regular and meaningful interaction between the supervisor licensee and the person being supervised in terms of planning, coordinating, guiding, inspecting, controlling, and evaluating activities, and having authority over the employee being supervised. A licensee acting as a consultant or independent contractor to the applicant’s employer will not meet the requirement of direct supervision. (e) The experience required under ORS 673.040 consists of activities generally performed by Oregon licensed CPAs and PAs engaged in the practice of public accountancy. Experience obtained while performing attest, compilations, financial advisory services or tax advisory services must be performed while employed at a public accounting firm. (3) Experience requirement . The applicant must develop experience that demonstrates to the satisfaction of the Board that the applicant has achieved each of the following competencies, together with the supervisory licensee verification. (a) Understanding of the Code of Professional Conduct promulgated and adopted by the Board; (b) Ability to assess the achievement of a client's objectives by demonstrating knowledge of various business organizations, understanding of the objectives and goals of business entities, ability to develop and analyze performance measures and critical success factors, and understanding of the economic and regulatory trends that affect the environment of a business entity. (c) Experience in preparing working papers that include sufficient relevant data to support the analysis and conclusions required by the applicant's work. (d) Understanding transaction streams and information systems, including the ability to understand how individual transactions aggregate at the organizational level, to infer how transactions impact the organization as a whole, and to evaluate the integrity and reliability of various client information systems, including relevant computer aspects. (e) Skills in risk assessment and verification demonstrated by a sufficient understanding of accounting and other information systems to; (A) Assess the risk of misstatement in an information system; (B) Obtain sufficient relevant data based on the risk of misstatement and the nature of the engagement to determine the appropriateness of underlying data in terms of its completeness, existence and occurrence, valuation and allocation, rights and obligations, presentation and disclosures. (f) Skills in decision making, problem solving, critical analytical thinking, including the ability to evaluate and interpret sufficient relevant data in a variety of engagements and settings. (g) Ability to express scope of work, findings, and conclusions, including the ability to determine when it is appropriate to issue reports on financial statements, system reliability, or reports expressing scope of work, findings and conclusions. (4) Qualifying experience . An applicant must demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Board that the portfolio of experience submitted is of sufficient quality and diversity to meet the requirements of this rule. Qualifying experience may be obtained in the following categories: (a) Attest Experience that demonstrates the competencies prescribed in section (3) of this rule must be obtained while the applicant is: (A) Employed in public practice on the staff of a certified public accountant or a firm of certified public accountants; (B) Employed in an organization where employment is equivalent to that described in paragraph (4)(a)(A) of this rule if a peer review is conducted or if such employment is with audit agencies, internal audit departments or other organizations where a peer review is conducted and the audit agency, internal audit department, or other organization is independent of the entity. (C) Experience under this subsection must include: (i) Conducting attest-oriented functions where third party reliance is an objective of the report; (ii) Drafting reports in accordance with professional standards; (iii) Drafting or evaluating the completeness and accuracy of financial statements with footnotes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or applicable reporting framework. (D) "Third party reliance" as used in this rule means: (i) Actual third party reliance, such as takes place with respect to the reader of financial statements upon which an audit opinion has been rendered by a public accountant licensed in Oregon or a certified public accountant; (ii) Audits performed by government agencies, including tax authorities, on organizations which are not subject to management control by the auditing agency; or (iii) Financial audits performed by independent working groups where the purpose of the audit is reliance by the board of directors on the fairness of the presentation of internally generated financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles or applicable reporting framework. (E) Attest experience may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to ensure that experience meets the criteria of subsections (3)(a) through (g). (b) Tax Experience that demonstrates the competencies prescribed in section (3) of this rule must be obtained while the applicant is: (A) Employed in public practice on the staff of a public accountant, a certified public accountant or a firm of public accountants or certified public accountants; (B) Engaged in employment that is equivalent to that described in paragraph (4)(b)(A) of this rule. (C) Tax experience related to subsection (3)(a) of this rule will include the practice of tax with integrity, objectivity, independence, professional judgment, due professional care, and professional skepticism. (D) Tax experience related to subsection (3)(b) of this rule will be in the context of federal and state tax law, federal and state tax regulation, judicial precedence and other technical tax sources applied to a variety of taxable and nontaxable business entities, non-business entities, individuals, families, estates and trusts. (E) Tax experience related to subsection (3)(c) of this rule will be in the context of records that are clearly organized, complete, cross-referenced and with adequate documentation and support for positions taken or proposed within the context of federal and state tax law, federal and state tax regulations, judicial precedence and other technical tax sources. (F) Tax experience related to subsection (3)(d) of this rule will be in the context of the application of tax law to various types of transactions both individually and in the aggregate and both actual and proposed. (G) Tax experience related to subsection (3)(e) of this rule will be in the context of the evaluation of the reasonableness of data provided by clients and the sufficiency and adequacy of the data to support reasonable tax positions and conclusions. (H) Tax experience related to subsection (3)(f) of this rule will be in the context of identifying tax issues, researching technical guidance, choosing appropriate courses of action and proposing solutions. (I) Tax experience related to subsection (3)(g) of this rule will be in the context of researching and preparing supporting documents for technical tax positions. (J) Tax experience may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to ensure that experience meets criteria of subsections (3)(a) through (g). (c) Industry, government and not-for-profit experience . Experience that demonstrates the competencies described in section (3) of this rule may also be obtained while the applicant is employed under the direct supervision of a public accountant or certified public accountant as provided under this rule. (A) Industry experience related to subsection (3)(a) of this rule, will include the practice of accountancy with integrity, objectivity, independence, professional judgment, due professional care and professional skepticism. (B) Industry experience related to subsection (3)(b) of this rule, will be in the context of assessing the objectives and goals, performance measures, critical success factors and the economic and regulatory trends affecting the applicant’s company and industry. (C) Industry experience related to subsection (3)(c) will be in the context of documenting an analysis of a financial accountancy issue affecting the applicant’s company from the collection and summarization of financial data to the identification of alternative conclusions such that others of equal training and experience can trace information to source data and draw similar conclusions. (D) Industry experience related to subsection (3)(d) of this rule will be in the context of understanding the entity's transactions streams and information systems and evaluating the integrity and reliability of the resultant information. (E) Industry experience related to subsection (3)(e) of this rule will be in the context of evaluating risks of misstated financial data within the applicant’s company and taking action to mitigate those risks. (F) Industry experience related to subsection (3)(f) of this rule will be in the context of identifying significant data trends and the impact of the trends on the applicant’s company on both a short and long term basis. (G) Industry experience related to subsection (3)(g) of this rule will be in the context of both written and oral presentation of financial information and related accounting conventions within the applicant’s company that include the significance of the financial information, applicable accounting rules and consideration of alternatives and conclusions drawn. (H) Industry, government, and not-for-profit experience may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to ensure that experience meets criteria of subsections (3)(a) through (g). (d) Experience, other than experience described in subsections (4)(a), (b), and (c) of this rule will be evaluated by the Board on a case-by-case basis to ensure that experience meets the criteria of subsections (3)(a) through (g). (5) Submitting applications to the Board . (a) An applicant’s file must be complete in every particular within three months of the date of application or the file will be closed. The application fee is not refundable. (b) An applicant's file may be included on the agenda of any meeting of the Board if the file is complete in every particular no less than fourteen days prior to the date of a scheduled Board meeting. (6) If more than eight years have lapsed since an applicant completed and passed all sections of the CPA exam , an applicant may apply for a Certified Public Accountant license as follows: (a) Submit a completed application on a form provided for by the Board; (b) Pay an initial application fee as provided for in OAR 801-010-0010(1)(b); (c) Complete and report 80 CPE hours which must be completed within the 12 month period immediately preceding the date the application for initial licensure is received at the Board office and which are subject to the following: (A) Credit for programs in non-technical subjects is limited to 16 CPE hours; and (B) Submit proof of completion certificates for each CPE course submitted; and (C) CPE hours used to qualify for initial licensure under this section cannot be claimed on a renewal application. (d) Provide proof of passing a Board approved ethics exam with a score of 90 percent or higher within the 12 month period immediately preceding the date the application for initial licensure is received at the Board office (any CPE credit obtained in the course of completing the ethics exam can be applied to the 80 hours of CPE in subsection (c) above); and (e) Provide proof of completion of supervised public accountancy experience in compliance with the experience requirements as provided for in OAR 801-010-0065.