CPA optimism on economy falls from six months ago.

CPAs serving as chief executive officers, chief financial officers and in other financial positions are less optimistic about the U.S. economy than they were six months ago, according to the results of the AICPA's Business and Industry Economic Outlook Survey, a semi-annual study.

Indeed, only 57% of these CPA decision makers have a positive outlook on the state of the economy, as opposed to 71% in Dec., 2004, when the prior survey took place. About three quarters of the respondents (74%), however, expressed continued optimism about the prospects for their own organizations; this represents a marginal increase over the 73% who responded similarly in Dec.

The major concerns fueling their reservations about the economy are ballooning energy and employee costs: increased regulation: and the cascade effect of Sarbanes-Oxley Act provisions. More than 50% of the respondents reported being more concerned about these issues than they were six months ago.

On specific policy issues, CPA executives indicated greater concern about the impact of changes in short-term interest rates on inflation than unemployment. On Social Security reform, more are concerned about maintaining current tax rates than current benefit levels.

The survey, conducted in June. represents the views of 1,465 AICPA members in public and privately held companies, government, and not-for-profit organizations. Most of the respondents (47%) work for companies with revenues of $10 million--$100 million. The second largest group (23%) is affiliated with organizations that have less than $10 million in annual revenues, followed by those with $100 million-$1 billion companies (20%). Respondents with companies that take in more than $1 billion a year represented the smallest number (10%). Of the 1,465, nearly two thirds work for privately held companies. The full survey results are available from the Financial Management Center at www.aicpa.org/fmcenter.