Lessons · Accounting · working across state lines
Working across state lines, which is more permissive here than anywhere else on this list
A licensee in good standing can generally serve clients in another state under a practice privilege rather than by obtaining a second licence. It is a privilege with conditions attached, not a licence, and a firm's own registration is treated separately from the individual's privilege.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
In beta. This lesson was written for Hone and has not yet been checked by a qualified accountant. Practice material, not professional advice. What that means.
What it is for
Compared with the other licensed careers here this is genuinely generous -- a pharmacist can face a second law examination for the same move -- and the comparison is the point, because it means advice borrowed from another profession is wrong in both directions. The trap is assuming the privilege is unconditional, or that it covers a firm. Attest work -- the word for the audit and review opinions the licence exists to gate -- can in particular require the firm to be registered in the state even where the individual needs nothing further. Relying on a privilege you have not read is the same error as assuming you need a second licence you do not: both are guesses about a rule that is written down.
How to think about it
Separate three questions rather than asking one: am I in good standing, does this state's privilege cover what I am about to do, and does my firm need to be registered there. Check the third before signing anything as a firm. Boards set these rules and change them, so any figure you plan around has to come from your own board's page rather than from here or from somebody who qualified in a different year.
Worked example
The privilege is for the personIt lets a licensee in good standing practise across a line without a second licence.
It has conditionsGood standing is one of them, and a state can attach others.
The firm is a separate questionA firm's registration is not carried by an individual's privilege.
Attest work is where it bitesAttest means the audit and review opinions -- the same narrow set of acts the licence existed to gate.
Generous is not unconditionalIt is a rule to read, not a permission to assume.
Your turn
Name the registration an individual's privilege does not carry.
A practice privilege does not carry the registration
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Reading the individual privilege, finding it generous, and stopping there. The firm is a separate registration, and attest work across a state line is exactly where that gap gets found.