Rhode Island General Laws Title 5. Businesses and Professions § 5-3.1-2. Policy and purpose

(1) To promote the dependability of information that is used for guidance in financial transactions or for accounting for or assessing the financial status or performance of commercial, noncommercial, and governmental enterprises;

(2) To protect the public interest by requiring that persons professing special competence in accountancy or offering assurance as to the reliability or fairness of presentation of that information demonstrate their qualification to do so, and that persons who have not demonstrated and maintained those qualifications, including, but not limited to, certificate holders not in public practice, not be permitted to hold themselves out as having that special competence or to offer that assurance;

(3) To regulate the professional conduct of persons licensed as having special competence in accountancy, in all aspects of the practice of public accountancy;

(4) To establish a public authority competent to prescribe and assess the qualifications of and to regulate the professional conduct of practitioners of public accountancy; and

(5) To prohibit the use of titles relating to the practice of public accountancy that are likely to mislead the public as to the status or competence of the persons using those titles.