NINJA Monthly member Justin writes in, “How drastically is the REG section of the CPA Exam going to change? I'm trying to decide which section of the exam to take next. I have already studied for regulation and got a 69. I'm not sure if it's best to try to pass regulation now before the exam changes or wait until after. Any thoughts would be helpful.”

Okay, so what Justin is asking is about the Trump tax laws, and they are not testable on the CPA exam in 2018, thankfully.

And so they will be eligible for testing on the CPA Exam in January of 2019, so any changes that are testable in July will be pretty minimal.

And so, there's still some question as to what changes get lumped in as part of the Trump tax laws, so estate tax, threshold, things like that. So does that get lumped in with the estate, or with the Trump tax laws or is that just a normal part of, so every year, the CPA exam updates its Section 179 expense and estate tax thresholds, things like that.

The regulation exam typically doesn't test on just withholding amounts and things like that because that's just too in the weeds for the CPA exam. And so it will be interesting to see as we get more clarification heading into July exams, June, July exams so that the CPA review providers can make sure that their materials are updated.

But the July regulation updates are not going to be a big deal. January 2019 regulation changes are going to be a big deal. So stay tuned.