AICPA Advertising Rules Checker

What the AICPA advertising rules say, and which rule actually binds your firm.

The AICPA's advertising rule is two sentences long, and most of what a CPA firm can and cannot say sits in the list underneath it, in the contingent-fee rule next door, and in a state board regulation the Code never quotes. Here is each layer in the order a firm meets it.

The rule itself: AICPA Code 1.600.001

The Advertising and Other Forms of Solicitation Rule sits in Part 1 of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, the part addressed to members in public practice. In full, it reads: "A member in public practice shall not seek to obtain clients by advertising or other forms of solicitation in a manner that is false, misleading, or deceptive. Solicitation by the use of coercion, over-reaching, or harassing conduct is prohibited."

Nothing in it bans advertising, names a medium or requires a disclaimer. The work is done by the interpretation at 1.600.010, which says promotional efforts "would be considered false, misleading, or deceptive if they":

• (a) "create false or unjustified expectations of favorable results."
• (b) "imply the ability to influence any court, tribunal, regulatory agency, or similar body or official."
• (c) "contain a representation that the member will perform specific professional services in current or future periods for a stated fee, estimated fee, or fee range when it was likely at the time of the representation that such fees would be substantially increased and the member failed to advise the prospective client of that likelihood."
• (d) contain any other representation likely to cause a reasonable person to misunderstand or be deceived.

Two words carry most of the weight. "Unjustified" in (a) does not ask whether a promise came true; it asks whether you had grounds for the expectation when you wrote it. "Imply" in (b) means a sentence never has to claim influence to be caught: a former-IRS credential placed next to "we make audits go away" builds the implication without saying it. Items (a) to (c) are quoted from the Code and (d) is paraphrased. Our reading is not part of the Code, and the edition we read is the AICPA's own PDF, effective December 15, 2014 and updated for all official releases through September 2026.

Why CPA firms may advertise at all: the 1990 FTC order

The rule is permissive because it had to become permissive. The Federal Trade Commission's own account, in its 2009 submission to the OECD, says that in 1990 the Commission "charged the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the dominant professional association in the accounting field, with restricting truthful, non-deceptive advertising by prohibiting members from making truthful claims in self-laudatory or comparative advertisements, or using truthful testimonials." The consent order, cited there as 113 F.T.C. 698 (1990), bars the AICPA from prohibiting those practices.

That history explains the shape of the modern rule. The Code cannot forbid a CPA firm from praising itself, comparing itself with competitors or quoting a client, so long as the claim is true and not deceptive. It can only reach what is false, misleading or deceptive. Anything stricter has to come from somewhere else, and for a licensed CPA it usually does.

The state board layer: who the rule binds

The AICPA Code binds AICPA members. Its preface says so directly: "The AICPA bylaws require that members adhere to the rules of the code." A licensed CPA who never joined the AICPA is not bound by it through the AICPA, and a member in business is addressed by a different part of the Code. The rule attached to the licence is the state board of accountancy's, and it is often more specific than the Code. You can find your board through NASBA's directory of state boards.

Mississippi is a clear example of how much further a board goes. Its Rule 6.5.1 lists, among the statements that count as false or misleading, those that "consist of statements that are self-laudatory and that are not based on verifiable facts", that "make incomplete comparisons with other CPAs", that "contain testimonials or endorsements that are not based on verifiable facts", and that "relate to fees or a range of fees not fully disclosing all variables and other relevant facts". Its Rules 6.5.4 and 6.5.5 require a CPA to keep a copy of direct communications and a record of public advertising for at least 36 months. Texas, at 22 TAC 501.82(b)(1), has a near-parallel list: self-laudatory statements "not based on verifiable facts", untrue comparisons with other accountants, and fee representations that do not disclose the variables that may affect the fee.

Read those against the FTC order and they are consistent: a board does not ban a truthful superlative, it bans one you cannot verify. That is the practical test for "best CPA in Tulsa". Name the survey that said so and the claim is verifiable; award it to yourself and it is not.

This checker encodes the first two rows and the Circular 230 row. It has no state overlays yet, which is why the superlative rule is review tier rather than hard: whether "leading tax firm" is a problem depends on your board and on whether you can verify it, so in Verand it holds the draft until an operator overrides it and writes down why.

Promotion done for you: agencies, lead vendors and referral partners

A marketing agency is not an AICPA member and the Code does not reach it. It reaches you. The interpretation at 1.600.010 says that if a member is asked to perform professional services for a client or customer of a third party, "the member should determine that the third party's promotional efforts comply", because "the member will receive the benefits of such efforts by third parties, and members must not do through others what they are prohibited from doing themselves." In practice that means the landing page a lead vendor runs under your name, the copy an agency writes for your fee page and the email a referral partner sends about you are all yours to read before they run.

Refunds, contingent fees and "we only get paid if you do"

The line most likely to reach a CPA firm's website is not in the advertising rule at all. AICPA Code 1.510.001 says a member in public practice shall not "prepare an original or amended tax return or claim for a tax refund for a contingent fee for any client." For any client, not for attest clients only. So a headline such as "you pay only if we get you a bigger refund" advertises a fee arrangement the Code forbids for return preparation, whatever the advertising rule says about how it is worded. The Code's own tax interpretation lists situations where a contingent fee is allowed, such as representing a client in an examination, and they are mostly representation rather than preparation.

Circular 230 has its own contingent-fee section, 31 CFR 10.27, whose definition includes "a fee that is based on a percentage of the refund reported on a return". Its reach over ordinary refund claims was narrowed in court in 2014 (Ridgely v. Lew, as reported by the AICPA's own The Tax Adviser; we did not read the opinion itself), so treat the Circular 230 half as a question for counsel. The AICPA rule is unaffected by that case, and it is the one the pack's hard flag rests on first.

Circular 230 section 10.30: the IRS's advertising rule

If anyone at your firm practises before the IRS, Treasury has its own advertising rule. Section 10.30(a)(1) says a practitioner may not, with respect to any IRS matter, "use or participate in the use of any form of public communication or private solicitation containing a false, fraudulent, or coercive statement or claim; or a misleading or deceptive statement or claim." The same section lets you publish fixed fees for specific routine services, hourly rates, a range of fees and the fee for an initial consultation; requires you to hold published rates for at least 30 calendar days; bars enrolled agents and registered preparers from describing themselves as "certified"; and requires a copy of direct mail and e-commerce communications to be kept for at least 36 months. The pack's implied-influence rule cites 10.30 because a claim of pull inside the Service is the misleading statement it names most plainly.

What the CPA pack flags, rule by rule

These are the rules that run on this page, each with a phrase it flags. The first five are the CPA pack's own; the rest come from the Base YMYL Foundation underneath it. Every phrase here was tested against the rule it sits beside.

Two exceptions are worth knowing. The implied-influence rule does not fire on "former IRS employee with", so naming a genuine former role is left alone while "former IRS insider" is flagged. The superlative rule does not fire beside "according to", "rated by", "ranked by" or "named by", so an attributed ranking reads differently from one you award yourself, which is exactly the line the boards draw. A bare "voted" is not enough, because anyone can write it: name who ran the vote.

Why the disclaimer is checked by phrase

No rule in the Code or Circular 230 hands a firm a disclaimer to paste. The pack's block exists because tax content ages fast and reads like advice: it says the piece is informational, that the law it describes is subject to change, that it is not professional advice, that reading it creates no accountant-client relationship, and that the reader should consult an advisor. Firms reword it, so the checker looks for those five phrases rather than the exact text. The old Circular 230 notice about avoiding penalties is deliberately not in the pack; the rule behind it was withdrawn in 2014 (T.D. 9668).

Below is a real run on real published copy: the answer to "Can we advertise a fixed fee for a return?" and the CPA disclaimer block, both from verand.ai's pages for CPA firms, pasted as published and checked against the CPA pack. It shows what a clean result looks like, including the advisory row a short excerpt always raises: the pack asks an article for four citations, and an excerpt has none.

Go deeper on the rulebook itself in AICPA advertising rules for a CPA firm, which walks the Code paragraph by paragraph, and Circular 230 and how you market tax work.

What a phrase checker cannot judge for a CPA firm

Most of what makes CPA advertising misleading is a fact about the firm, not a phrase. Whether a published fee range was already likely to rise substantially depends on what you knew. Whether "Members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants" may appear on the firm's site depends on whether every CPA owner is a member. Whether the PFS letters can go on firm letterhead depends on whether every partner holds them. None of those is visible in text, and none is checked here.

The patterns are also literal. The refund-fee rule is written around "pay only if we get you a refund" and its close relatives, so a sentence built another way can carry the same promise and pass. The pack flags "audit-proof" as hard and a guaranteed maximum refund for review; a plainer "guaranteed refund" or a guaranteed audit outcome is caught inside Verand by a separate CPA conduct check that this free page does not run. Treat a clean result as the absence of the listed problems, not as a green light.

Common mistakes on CPA firm websites

• Reading the AICPA rule as the only rule. The Code binds members. The board that holds your licence binds you whether or not you are a member, and it is usually the stricter of the two.
• Advertising a refund-based fee for preparation. "No refund, no fee" reads as a customer-friendly promise and describes an arrangement 1.510 forbids for preparing returns and refund claims.
• Letting a former-IRS credential do more work than it should. The role is a fact you may state. Placed beside talk of making problems disappear, it implies influence.
• Awarding yourself a ranking. "Best CPA firm in town" with no source is the self-laudatory, unverifiable statement boards name. A named ranking with its source is a different sentence.
• Leaving the agency's copy unread. Promotion done on your behalf is yours to check, because you take the benefit of it.
• Keeping no copy. Boards such as Mississippi's and Texas's, and Circular 230 for direct mail and e-commerce, set 36-month record periods. A site edited in place keeps nothing.