Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Ethics Course topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Board executive director presents 2026 state‑specific ethics outline; committee approves outline for TSCPA development
Summary
Executive director provided a draft outline for the board‑required state‑specific ethics course developed under the board's memorandum of understanding with the Tennessee Society of CPAs; the committee approved the outline (with an added bullet on potential disciplinary outcomes) for the TSCPA to use in course development.
The licensing and executive staff and the board’s executive committee reviewed a proposed content outline for the 2026 state‑specific ethics continuing professional education course on Oct. 20 and approved forwarding the outline to the Tennessee Society of CPAs (TSCPA) for course development.
Executive Director Jen explained the board’s 2017 memorandum of understanding with the TSCPA under which TSCPA prepares the annual state‑specific ethics course and the board provides an outline by Dec. 1. The proposed 2026 outline (provided to committee members) retains core items from prior years and adds emphasis on peer review requirements, a new FAQ item on failure to meet CPE renewal requirements, and a section for new and emerging topics — notably the impact of the 2025 peer review rule changes and recent legislative changes discussed as the “less is more” act of 2025.
Committee members asked staff to ensure the course includes practical examples drawn from the board’s legal reports (closed matters) that illustrate common violations and resulting disciplinary outcomes. Staff noted case studies in the TSCPA course are customarily pulled from closed legal reports and are anonymized; staff agreed to add a specific bullet under the complaint‑process section titled “potential disciplinary action” so the course can summarize possible outcomes (closure, warning, consent order, civil penalty, license actions) without identifying pending matters.
The committee voted to approve the proposed outline with the added complaint‑process bullet and directed staff to provide the outline to TSCPA for development. Committee members also discussed (and staff planned) making the board’s disciplinary guidance and commonly cited rules more visible to licensees and to incorporate those points into the ethics presentation.
The approved outline will be used by TSCPA to prepare the course content, which will then be delivered to licensees and made available to other continuing education providers per the MOU. The committee noted that the course must remain consistent with board rules and that any case examples used should be from closed matters or suitably anonymized.
