114 Years of CPA: Is it Time for a Change?
Re: AICPA's Plan for Global Business Designation Forges Ahead
From: S.L. Smith, Ph.D., CPA

What is a Cognitor? All that I can find would lead one to conclude that the answer to the question is simple. A financial expert. Do we not already have a designation for a financial expert? It's called CPA. Continually adding designations does nothing more than dilute what recognition we have among the general user public, and what the profession has spent years trying to build. Would the Cognitor add anything to the profession? Evidently some reasonably well-informed members of the profession think not, e.g., Abraham Briloff and Wanda Wallace. Should members of the profession be concerned? Definitely. If we let the leaders of the AICPA and some large state societies have their way we may well see large Cognitor firms with non-CPA owners dominating the profession and the CPA will have about the same status as the local notary public. The AICPA and state societies need to check the pulse of their members.  It's not what they think it is.

Jan. 9, 2001