[Guti]

I received the below email from NASBA this morning. It pretty much says that now Indian students do not have to travel to the US to take the CPA exam as they can take it in Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon and the UAE.

Some Accounting jobs in South Florida have already been outsource by firms in India. The average accountant there gets pay around 10K per year. According to some American companies, Indian accountants were not well versed with Accounting laws and regulations. The clerical work like AP,AR on the other hand was easily outsourced for obvious reasons. Now with this new Law, there are going to be more CPAs in India than what we have in the US. Outsourcing will be a lot easier cause now you will have very competitive CPAs who understand GAAP,GAAS, and our IRS code at least on paper. To put this into perspective, I used to work in a 1.2 Billion dollar company. We had about 43 Accountant and only 5 CPAs. The salary range was from 50K to 150K. With this new law making it easier for Indian students to take the CPA exam, my old company could outsource to India and have 40 CPAs working with a range of 10K to 25K per year.Is this the beginning of the end for American CPAs working in private practice? I dont think Auditors could be outsourced.

Starting October 1, 2014, citizens, permanent residents and long-term residents of India can test for the Uniform CPA Examination in Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon and the UAE.

The CPA Examination application process is the same for U.S. and international candidates. In order to qualify to take the CPA Examination outside the U.S., candidates will have to establish their eligibility through an Accountancy Board participating in the International CPA Examination Administration program.

For a list of participating Accountancy Boards and information regarding international testing, please visit the International Administration of the CPA Exam page on our nasba.org website.

Prospective candidates must select the participating U.S. jurisdiction to which they will apply, contact the Accountancy Board (or its designee) in that jurisdiction to obtain application materials, submit completed applications and required fees as instructed, and once deemed qualified, register for the examination.

After receiving the Notice to Schedule, you may then register to take the examination in an international location and complete the International Administration of the CPA Exam through our Apply to Test Internationally page.

Once the International Administration process is complete, please visit Prometric’s website in order to schedule your examination in an available international test center location.

FAR-84
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[mystical guy]

There are more than enough jobs to go around, like many pointed out. There are things which can't be outsourced like observing inventory at a plant in Santa Fe. Or teaching a group of Accounting students at a business school in Kentucky, unless everything goes online, which will take a long time.

All I know is, based on my experience with ACCA, the CPA will be piece of cake for the Indians.

CPA - Since 2015
CISA - Smashed 2012
CIA - Passed 2015

[Sir Study Alot]

Of course as more manufacturing jobs leave this country less inventory observations will happen. Our consumption will need to decrease as our average wage goes down decreasing retail inventory observations as we lose the smaller retail outlets to Wall Mart. Big 4 firms can also outsource inventory counts to a US Inventory Testing firm that pays its auditors $12 an hour to do test counts domestically.

I really don't believe things are so dire at least to our short-term careers, but if people think they can let capitalism decide our fates then they will be soarly dissapointed. Our kids will not have many options unless globalization is addressed before we lose our ability to influence the world economy. In 20 years we might as well be India…high unemployment and low wages.

Passed all 4 exams in 2014!

[pedrocerrano]

Thank goodness we do not live in pure capitalistic society though. It's a hybrid of capitalism and socialism.

[Skynet]

I wonder if I'm the only guy here who is only thinking about who is Hotter, the Female American CPA's or the Female Indian Charter Accountants.

[Anonymous]

About the same as all CPAs are hott.

[Anonymous]

I don't think American government will ever be brave enough to go for protectionism and if they do you might end up driving ford or chevy -no thank you. So I guess capitalism will decide here in US.

I was very impressed by the fact that you can't open a restaurant in Geneva before the city gives you a permission. There is a limit set in order to maintain healthy competition which means the owner of the restaurant will not cut his/her employees' pay to $2.5/hour to push other guys out of the market. Mister Milton Friedman would be so shocked it's working.

[Sir Study Alot]

@ anjanja

You can always drive a used foreign car. At least the money only leaves the country once in that scenario.

Yah I don't think the government will do anything productive in the near future. The majority of Americans are either to stupid or not empowered enough to force change through our elected government. That being said a good way to avoid the whole tariff scenario is to provide huge tax incentives for the manufacturing sector to build and hire domestically. Some efforts have been made, but I am talking about a commitment that is big enough to really make it hard for companies to resist. It is likely that companies who already have huge infrastructure investments abroad will lobby against these measures. I really wish that lobbying was illeagle from a special interest stand point despite the freedom implications….

Passed all 4 exams in 2014!

[Author]

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