{"id":39574,"date":"2026-01-21T10:16:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:16:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=39574"},"modified":"2026-01-21T10:16:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:16:26","slug":"changes-to-cpa-licensure-considered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=39574","title":{"rendered":"Changes to CPA licensure considered"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee heard testimony Jan. 20 on a measure intended to increase licensure access to those seeking to become certified public accountants in Nebraska.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Mike Jacobson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

North Platte Sen. Mike Jacobson, sponsor of LB718, said the measure would expand and modernize pathways to licensure while maintaining strong professional standards and public safeguards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want our students to stay in Nebraska, test in Nebraska and start their careers in Nebraska,\u201d Jacobson said.<\/p>\n

Currently, to sit for the CPA exam in Nebraska, one must have completed 150 semester-hours of postsecondary academic credit, earned a bachelor\u2019s degree or higher from an accredited college or university and demonstrated professional competency.<\/p>\n

Jacobson said the 150 credit-hour requirement essentially is 30 credits beyond what is required to earn a bachelor\u2019s degree and is a barrier to entry for the profession.<\/p>\n

LB718 instead would create three distinct licensure pathways in the state:
\n\u2022 a master\u2019s degree plus one year of experience;
\n\u2022 a bachelor\u2019s degree plus 30 additional credit hours and one year of experience;
\n\u2022 a bachelor\u2019s degree plus two years of professional experience.<\/p>\n

The measure also would clarify that passing the exam is not the same as being credentialed as a CPA, align Nebraska law with the Uniform Accountancy Act and provide a distinction between administrative lapses and ethical violations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis protects the professional reputation of our accountants by ensuring that a simple failure to review a permit isn\u2019t categorized alongside serious misconduct like fraud,\u201d Jacobson said.<\/p>\n

Jodi Eckhout, licensed CPA and chair of the Nebraska Society of CPAs, testified in favor of the proposal. Seventy-five percent of today\u2019s CPAs will retire in the next 15 years, she said, and the growing shortage of professionals requires a way to make the licensure process more accessible.<\/p>\n

For more than 20 years there\u2019s been only one path into the profession in Nebraska, Eckhout said, which has become a barrier to many students due to tuition costs and delayed entry into the workforce.<\/p>\n

Under the bill, every CPA in Nebraska, regardless of pathway, still must complete the same core accounting coursework, pass the same national exam and demonstrate real-world competence under the supervision of a licensed CPA,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Andrew Blossom, vice chair of the Nebraska Board of Public Accountancy, also supported the bill on behalf of the board. He said that as a member of the state agency that regulates CPAs in Nebraska, he served on the licensure task force that developed LB718.<\/p>\n

Twenty-two states already have passed similar legislation, Blossom said, and the measure would strengthen the profession and align Nebraska CPA licensure with the rest of the nation.<\/p>\n

No one testified in opposition to the proposal and the committee took no immediate action on the measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee heard testimony Jan. 20 on a measure intended to increase licensure access to those seeking to become certified public accountants in Nebraska.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[284],"class_list":["post-39574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-banking-commerce-and-insurance","tag-sen-mike-jacobson"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/LB718Jacobson1-20-26a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39576,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39574\/revisions\/39576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}