The American Institute of CPAs is asking the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service to increase the safe harbor for companies to avoid determining whether the corporate alternative minimum tax would apply to them.

In a comment letter to the Treasury and the IRS on their proposed regulations, the AICPA asked them to increase the $500 million safe harbor for purposes of determining applicable corporation status. The AICPA also requested a simplified methodology that would be available to non-applicable corporations and/or applicable corporations with high effective federal tax rates. The Institute also suggested an irrevocable election to use pretax book income as adjusted applicable financial statement income for CAMT liability purposes.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 created the CAMT, which imposes a 15% minimum tax on the adjusted financial statement income, or AFSI, of large corporations for tax years starting after Dec. 31, 2022. The CAMT generally applies to large corporations with average annual financial statement income exceeding $1 billion. However, the proposed regulations require far smaller companies to determine whether the tax applies to them, and the AICPA pointed out this could be burdensome to them. The IRS and the Treasury released the proposed regulations last September.

“The proposed regulations impose a massive compliance burden on all U.S. taxpayers that do not meet the $500 million AFSI safe harbor while only a small group, approximately 100 of those taxpayers, will pay the CAMT liability,” said Reema Patel, senior manager of AICPA tax advocacy and policy, in a statement Thursday. “The AICPA’s comment letter provides a non-exhaustive list of items in the proposed regulations with a high compliance burden for the taxpayers.”

The AICPA’s comments also discuss other aspects of the proposed regulations, including general concepts and methods and periods, international tax, passthrough, and mergers and acquisitions issues. The latest comments from the AICPA come after previously submitted letters to Congress in 2021 and 2022 asking for immediate guidance on the CAMT rules along with letters submitted to the Treasury and the IRS on interim guidance issued on CAMT in 2023 and 2024. 

The CPA Success Index was created in 2020 as a more comprehensive metric to evaluate how well collegiate accounting programs prepare students to pass all four sections of the CPA exam within the critical 18-month window. Unlike NASBA’s single-section pass rate, the CPA Success Index estimates students’ likelihood of completing the entire exam based on first-time section pass rates, adjusted for the 18-month timeframe. The CPA Success Index is computed using the number of sections candidates passed on the first attempt in the preceding 12 months, grossing up that value to 18 months using the school’s average first-time pass rate, and then dividing that value by the total number of sections, four.

Over the years, this index has become a trusted benchmark for identifying programs that consistently produce CPA-ready graduates. This updated ranking incorporates data from the 2023 edition of NASBA’s Candidate Performance on the Uniform CPA Examination book, which was released in late 2024. As with previous rankings, our analysis only reviews programs with greater than 20 candidates to ensure enough data points to adequately evaluate program performance. 

Current top 10 CPA Success Index rankings

Based on NASBA’s most recently reported data from 2023, the top 10 accounting programs in the CPA Success Index are:

1. University of Northern Iowa – Success Index: 1.000 (51 candidates)
2. Texas A&M University – Success Index: 0.802 (369 candidates)
3. University of Texas – Austin – Success Index: 0.722 (340 candidates)
4. University of Virginia – Success Index: 0.718 (71 candidates)
5. Brigham Young University – Success Index: 0.716 (285 candidates)
6. Washington and Lee University – Success Index: 0.716 (22 candidates)
7. University of Wisconsin – Madison – Success Index: 0.688 (187 candidates)
8. Baylor University – Success Index: 0.686 (240 candidates)
9. University of Kansas – Success Index: 0.680 (134 candidates)
10. Georgetown University – Success Index: 0.653 (27 candidates)

Programs with consistent success over time

When comparing the latest rankings to previous reports, several programs stand out for their consistent performance. These four programs appear in the Top 10 in each of our CPA Success Rankings: 

• Texas A&M University: A recurring top performer, Texas A&M benefits from its five-year integrated Professional Program in Accounting. 
• University of Texas – Austin: This program has consistently ranked among the top schools, reflecting its robust accounting curriculum and exam preparation. 
• University of Northern Iowa: Northern Iowa offers a unique and integrated faculty-led and for-credit CPA review program. 
• University of Kansas: Kansas demonstrates sustained excellence through integrated coursework and focused CPA exam strategies.

The CPA Success Index continues to highlight institutions that not only prepare students academically but also provide the necessary support to ensure they succeed in passing the CPA exam. These institutions serve as examples of how academic structure, focused preparation and student support can bridge the CPA gap and help graduates successfully navigate the CPA exam. The average CPA Success Index for the 529 universities with greater than 20 candidates is .33 (the index is .30 for all schools in the NASBA report). For prospective accounting students and employers, these rankings offer valuable insights into programs that deliver on their promise of CPA readiness. As the accounting profession continues to face workforce shortages, the success of candidates remains essential for addressing the CPA pipeline challenges of the future.

The top 40

To be consistent with NASBA’s annual ranking of the top 40 universities on the single-part pass rate, we list the top 40 schools for CPA success in the table for all programs with greater than 20 candidates and split by program size, medium and large.  

House Republicans are in talks over raising the cap for state and local tax deductions after winning pledges from President Donald Trump and congressional leaders to include the measure in a must-pass tax bill this year.

New York Republicans are having discussions about how to raise the $10,000 SALT cap so that their constituents can deduct more local income and real estate taxes from federal bills. Lawmakers are hoping to come up with a figure for the deduction cap in the coming weeks — potentially as soon as February, GOP Representative Nicole Malliotakis said. 

“We looked at increasing the deduction, perhaps putting in some income restrictions so it’s not going to billionaires. We talked about possibly the marriage penalty. We talked about if second properties would be allowed for deduction,” Malliotakis said. She said increasing the SALT cap to $20,000 would not be enough.

How to handle SALT will be a key point of negotiations in Congress this year as Republicans write a broader tax bill to extend Trump’s 2017 cuts, which will expire at the end of the year unless lawmakers act. 

Several Republicans representing areas in New York, California and New Jersey — where high incomes, property values and local taxes make an increase in the SALT cap especially lucrative for many residents — have said they’d block the bill if the deduction isn’t adequately addressed. It’s a threat they could make good on, given the GOP’s narrow majority in the House.

The race to negotiate an increase to the SALT cap kicked off earlier this month after several members from those high-tax states met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith has also expressed support for including SALT in the bill.

New York Representative Mike Lawler is among the Republicans due to meet with Trump at the White House on Wednesday to discuss issues including SALT. Lawler said Trump has been supportive of ensuring that the question is resolved in any tax bill Republicans write in 2025.

“He is in full agreement with us, which is extremely helpful, obviously, when dealing with some of my colleagues who are reflexively opposed because they think they are subsidizing bad blue-state policies,” Lawler said on Wednesday at a Politico event in Washington.

It was Trump himself who first imposed the cap on SALT during his 2017 legislation, where it helped offset the cost of other tax cuts. But many of the New York and California districts that most benefit from SALT have flipped Republican, putting pressure on the party to reverse course.

Along with SALT and the extension of the 2017 bill, Republicans are also weighing Trump’s campaign tax promises including plans to stop taxing overtime pay, tips and Social Security — proposals which could cause the cost of any tax bill to balloon. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday he wants to pass the bill by May.

Representative Nick LaLota, a Long Island Republican who has been vocal about raising the cap, said he expects pro-SALT House members to take a proposal for a new SALT cap to the White House, backed with an explanation of “why that number is specifically important.” 

Despite having the blessing of Trump and congressional leaders to address SALT in the tax bill, Republicans are still divided on exactly how high to push the deduction cap, and on other details. Lawler has introduced a bill that would lift the cap to $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for those filing jointly.

“Any increase is a win for my constituents,” Malliotakis said in an interview. “Any money you can keep in their pockets will be a step in the right direction.” 

Lawler said moderate Republicans are determined to find a fix before agreeing to other aspects of the proposed tax bill. 

“We have unified government for only the fourth time since World War II,” he said. “Republicans have one opportunity to get this right, and it means everybody is going to have to give.”