The first week of January, the partner has a Google ad half written. It reads: “Certified tax experts. Individual returns from $350.” Beside it sits a client's thank-you email the partner would like on the homepage. It all looks harmless. Before any of it goes live, the partner wants to know which parts are allowed, and who decides.
Four sets of rules answer that, and each one reaches a different part of the ad. This post maps where each rule lives, what it covers and where it touches a firm's marketing. It points to the sources and stops short of legal advice. Every rule below links to its own text, and your state board of accountancy and your counsel have the last word.
Four sets of rules, and who each one binds
- Treasury Circular 230, §10.30, for anyone practicing before the IRS: CPAs, enrolled agents and the others the circular covers.
- The AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, for AICPA members. Most states fold similar rules into their own.
- Your state board of accountancy, on who may call themselves a CPA.
- The FTC's 2024 review rule, on reviews and testimonials.
They share one idea. The rules follow the message, not just the person who wrote it. The AICPA Code says a member “must not do through others what they are prohibited from doing themselves” (1.600.010.01). An agency's ad, a text campaign or the AI answering your phone speaks for the firm, so the same rules apply to all of them.
Circular 230 §10.30: no false or misleading claims
Paragraph (a)(1) of 31 CFR 10.30 bars any “false, fraudulent, or coercive statement or claim; or a misleading or deceptive statement or claim” in a public communication or private solicitation on an IRS matter. A website, an ad, a social post, an email and the script your phone line reads are all public communications.
The working test is simple. Would a reader come away believing something that isn't so? A fee the firm doesn't charge fails it. So does any hint that the firm has a special tie to the IRS.
Enrolled agents never say “certified”
The same paragraph is specific about one word. Enrolled agents and registered preparers “may not utilize the term 'certified' or imply an employer/employee relationship with the Internal Revenue Service.”
It also gives the wording that works. The section lists three acceptable descriptions, including “enrolled to represent taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service” and “enrolled to practice before the Internal Revenue Service”.
So the ad in our opening scene loses its first line if an enrolled agent wrote it. An EA's bio uses one of those phrases, never “certified tax expert”. Two habits follow from the same paragraph: keep the IRS seal off the site, and never write “IRS approved” anywhere.
Published fees hold for 30 days
Paragraph (b) lets a firm publish fixed fees for routine services, hourly rates, fee ranges and the fee for an initial consultation. Where other costs may come up, the firm says whether the client pays them.
Then (b)(2) adds a clock. The firm can't charge more than a published fee for at least 30 calendar days after it was last published. A fee on your pricing page, in a Google ad, in a newsletter or in what your phone line tells callers is a published fee.
That changes how a fee increase rolls out. Raise it everywhere at once, then plan to honor the old one for a month. The easy way to keep it straight is one fee list, kept by one person, that every ad, page and phone script copies from.
Solicitations, and the people who said no
Paragraph (a)(2) covers the uninvited kind. An uninvited solicitation must say that it is one and, if applicable, name the source of the information used to pick the person who got it.
Paragraph (c) is about persistence. A firm “may not persist in attempting to contact a prospective client” who has said no. Every email or text series stops at the first “not interested” or STOP.
Paragraph (d) closes the side door. A firm may not take help from anyone who brings in clients in a way the section forbids. Put together, the safe pattern is easy to state: follow up only with those who made the first move, or who already work with it, and never buy a list to reach strangers.
What the AICPA Code adds for CPAs
For AICPA members, the core line is 1.600.001 in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct: a member “shall not seek to obtain clients by advertising or other forms of solicitation in a manner that is false, misleading, or deceptive.” It adds: “Solicitation by the use of coercion, over-reaching, or harassing conduct is prohibited.” (The Minnesota board hosts a full copy of the Code.)
The interpretation at 1.600.010.02 spells out what misleading means. It includes ads that “create false or unjustified expectations of favorable results” or “imply the ability to influence any court, tribunal, regulatory agency”. It covers a quoted fee that the firm likely knew would be “substantially increased”, if the ad doesn't say so. And it covers anything “likely to cause a reasonable person to misunderstand or be deceived”.
That rules out two lines tax resolution ads lean on. “Settle your IRS debt for less” promises a result. “We know people at the IRS” implies influence.
The Code also governs names and letters after them. Under 1.800.001, a firm name can't mislead, and “Members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants” appears only if all the firm's CPA owners are members. Under 1.600.030, a firm puts an AICPA designation such as PFS on its letterhead and marketing only if all its partners hold it.
One more line matters when an outside marketer is involved. Under 1.520.001.04, a member who “pays a referral fee to obtain a client shall disclose such acceptance or payment to the client.” A marketer paid for each new client starts to look like that fee. On our reading, a flat monthly fee isn't one, which is why AccrueNest bills one flat amount each month and nothing per new client.
Who may say “CPA”: the Texas example
The AICPA Code hands this part to the states. Under 1.600.100, use of the CPA credential follows each state's accountancy law and board rules, and breaking them counts as false or misleading advertising.
Texas is one example. The Texas State Board of Public Accountancy's consumer FAQ says a person without its license who offers services to the public as a “CPA”, or in its words as an “accountant”, is practicing without a license.
The board also covers a licensed CPA doing non-attest work, such as bookkeeping or tax, through an unlicensed entity. That entity must show this line: “This firm is not a CPA firm and its services are not regulated by the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy.”
The rule text behind that FAQ sits in the Texas Administrative Code, which we didn't check for this post. Other states write their own rules, and we didn't check those either. Before “CPA” goes on a site, an ad or a sign, read your own board's rules.
For a firm's website, that turns into three questions at the start. Who holds a license, and in which state? Does any part of the firm work through an entity that isn't licensed? And does that part need the board's disclaimer? The answers decide every title on the site.
Reviews and testimonials under the FTC's rule
The FTC's 2024 rule, 16 CFR 465, bans six things:
- Fake or false reviews and testimonials, including reviews by people who don't exist or never used the service (465.2).
- Buying reviews: “compensation or other incentives in exchange for, or conditioned expressly or by implication on, the writing or creation of consumer reviews expressing a particular sentiment, whether positive or negative” (465.4).
- Reviews by the firm's own officers, managers or staff without disclosing the tie (465.5).
- A review site the firm controls posing as independent (465.6).
- Suppressing reviews by threats, or showing only the good ones as if they were all of them (465.7).
- Fake followers or views (465.8).
For a firm, three habits follow. Ask every client who agreed to be asked, never only the happy ones. Offer no gift or discount for a review, whatever it might say. And when your site shows reviews, don't present the best few as the whole picture.
The staff rule catches small firms most often. A preparer who leaves the firm five stars from a personal account, with no word that they work there, is the case 465.5 describes.
Testimonials and client confidentiality
A testimonial also carries a client's information. AICPA 1.700.001: a member “shall not disclose any confidential client information without the specific consent of the client.” So a client story or a named quote waits for the client's yes in writing. When the firm answers a Google review, the answer neither confirms nor denies that the person is a client, and it leaves their taxes out.
Return clients add one more step. A review request isn't one of the uses §7216's client-list rule allows, so it goes only to return clients who signed the firm's consent. Our post on texting tax clients walks through that consent and where it comes from.
That thank-you email from the opening scene can go on the homepage, then, once the client says yes in writing. With no yes, it stays in the inbox.
One list to run before anything publishes
Run this list over every ad, page, post and phone script before it goes up:
- Each fee matches your published list, and an old fee is honored for 30 days after a change.
- No “certified” for an enrolled agent, no IRS seal, and nothing that implies a tie to the IRS.
- “CPA” appears only for people and firms your state has licensed.
- No line promises a refund, a settlement or a result.
- Reviews are real, unpaid and requested from everyone who agreed, not only the happy ones.
- Every named quote or client story has the client's signed permission behind it.
- Follow-up goes to people who reached out first, and ends at the first no.
It applies to every line of ad copy, asking for reviews included. When a line is a close call, your board and your counsel decide.
AccrueNest
These posts come from AccrueNest, which sets up marketing and the front office for small US accounting firms. Each rule cited here links to its source, so you can read it before an ad runs.
