Terms Used In Vermont Statutes > Title 26 > Chapter 1 - Accountants

• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Attest services: means providing the following services:

• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Bequest: Property gifted by will.
• Board: means the Board of Public Accountancy. See
• Center: means the Vermont Center for Geographic Information. See
• Commissioner: shall mean in this title only the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. See
• Compilation: means providing a service to be performed in accordance with Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARS) that is presented in the form of financial statements or information that represents management or owners without expressing any type of assurance on the statements. See
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: means an unvacated final adjudication of guilt, or a final determination that a person has violated or failed to comply with the law in a court of original jurisdiction or an authorized administrative tribunal, an unvacated forfeiture of bail or collateral deposited to secure the person's appearance in court, the payment of a fine or court cost, or violation of a condition of release without bail, regardless of whether or not the penalty is rebated, suspended, or probated. See
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Executive session: A portion of the Senate's daily session in which it considers executive business.
• Fees: shall mean earnings due for official services, aside from salaries or per diem compensation. See
• Firm: means a sole proprietorship, a corporation, a partnership, association, or any other entity that practices public accountancy. See
• following: when used by way of reference to a section of the law shall mean the next preceding or following section. See
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Good character: means fiscal integrity, and a lack of any history of acts involving dishonesty, false statements, or fraud. See
• Home office: means the location specified by the client as the address to which a service described in subsection 74c(c) of this title is directed. See
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Loan: means a deposit of property not accompanied by a transfer of title to the property. See
• Magistrate: shall mean any Supreme Court Justice, Superior judge, District judge, or Probate judge. See
• Month: shall mean a calendar month and "year" shall mean a calendar year and be equivalent to the expression "year of our Lord. See
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• Motor truck: means any motor vehicle designed primarily for the transportation of property and shall be construed to include truck tractor-semitrailer and truck tractor-semitrailer-trailer combinations. See
• Motor vehicle: includes all vehicles propelled or drawn by power other than muscular power, except farm tractors, vehicles running only upon stationary rails or tracks, motorized highway building equipment, road making appliances, snowmobiles, tracked vehicles, motor-assisted bicycles, electric bicycles, or electric personal assistive mobility devices. See
• Motorized highway building equipment: shall include all bulldozers, rollers, scrapers, graders, spreaders, pavers, bituminous mixers, compressors, power shovels, excavators, dumpsters, concrete mixers, bucket loaders, snow loaders, rooters, and scarifiers, except road oilers and bituminous distributors, which contain as an integral part thereof and within the same unit facilities for generating motor power for propelling the same and while being used exclusively for the building, repair, or maintenance of highways, or being transported or moved from job to job in connection with the building, repair, or maintenance of highways; or, for purposes of registration only, if owned and operated by a municipality, while being used exclusively for municipal purposes; however, the town road commissioner, or comparable municipal officer, shall report annually to the legislative body of the municipality that the equipment is in good repair; tractors used exclusively as a power unit in drawing road making appliances or in the transportation of same or of such tractor from job to job in connection with the building, repair, or maintenance of highways. See
• Municipality: shall include a city, town, town school district, incorporated school or fire district or incorporated village, and all other governmental incorporated units. See
• Museum: means an institution operated by a nonprofit corporation or a public agency primarily for educational, scientific, historic preservation, or aesthetic purposes, and the institution owns, cares for, exhibits, studies, collects, archives, or catalogues property. See
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Operator: shall include all persons 18 years of age or over properly licensed to operate motor vehicles. See
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Owner: shall include any person, corporation, co-partnership, or association holding legal title to a motor vehicle or having exclusive right to the use or control thereof for a period of 30 days or more. See
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Peer review: means a systemwide study, appraisal, or review of one or more aspects of the professional work of a person or firm in the practice of public accounting that performs attest services by a person or persons who are licensed under this chapter and who are not affiliated with the person or firm being reviewed. See
• Person: shall include any natural person, corporation, municipality, the State of Vermont or any department, agency, or subdivision of the State, and any partnership, unincorporated association, or other legal entity. See
• Person: includes any natural person, corporation, association, co-partnership, company, firm, or other aggregation of individuals. See
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Practice of public accounting: means the performance or the offering to perform by a person or firm holding itself out to the public as being licensed, registered, or otherwise authorized under this chapter, for a client or potential client, of one or more kinds of services involving the use of accounting or auditing skills, including the issuance of reports on financial statements, or of one or more kinds of management advisory, financial advisory, or consulting services, or the preparation of tax returns or the furnishing of advice on tax matters. See
• Principal place of business: means the office location designated by the licensee for the purposes of substantial equivalency and reciprocity. See
• Property: means a tangible object, animate or inanimate, that has intrinsic, historic, artistic, scientific, or cultural value, and the object is under the care of a museum. See
• Public accountant: means a certified public accountant or a registered public accountant until July 1, 2003, after which the title of registered public accountant will still exist for those licensed as registered public accountants or having received conditional credit toward licensure as a registered public accountant by that date, but will no longer be a title granted by the Board. See
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• real estate: shall include lands, tenements, and hereditaments and all rights thereto and interests therein, and pews or slips in places of public worship shall be treated as real estate. See
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• report: includes any form of language that disclaims an opinion when the form of language is conventionally understood to imply any positive assurance as to the reliability of the attested information or compiled financial statements referred to or special competence on the part of the person or firm issuing the language; and it includes any other form of language that is conventionally understood to imply such assurance or such special knowledge or competence. See
• seal: shall include an impression of the official seal made upon paper alone or by means of a wafer or wax affixed thereto. See
• Service of process: The service of writs or summonses to the appropriate party.
• Sole proprietorship: when used for the specific purpose of describing the fee category applicable to a firm under this chapter, means a firm that employs only one certified public accountant. See
• State: includes the states of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U. See
• State: when applied to the different parts of the United States may apply to the District of Columbia and any territory and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. See
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Survey plat: means a map or plan drawn to scale of one or more parcels, tracts, or subdivisions of land, showing, but not limited to, boundaries, corners, markers, monuments, easements, and other rights. See
• Testator: A male person who leaves a will at death.
• Town: shall include city and wards or precincts therein; "selectboard members" and "board of civil authority" shall extend to and include the mayor and aldermen of cities; "trustees" shall extend to and include bailiffs of incorporated villages; and the laws applicable to the inhabitants and officers of towns shall be applicable to the inhabitants and similar officers of all municipal corporations. See
• Tractor: shall include a motor vehicle designed or used primarily as a traveling power plant or for drawing other vehicles, and not so constructed as to carry any load other than a part of the weight of the vehicles and load so drawn, excepting, however, motorized highway building equipment. See
• Trailer: is a vehicle without motive power designed to be drawn by a motor vehicle, and so constructed that no part of its weight rests upon the towing vehicle excepting, however, road making appliances and transportation dollies, and "semi-trailer" is a vehicle without motive power, designed to be drawn by a motor vehicle, and so constructed that some part of its weight and that of its load rests upon or is carried by the towing vehicle, excepting, however, pole dinkeys, transportation dollies, and road making appliances. See
• Trailer coach: shall mean any trailer or semi-trailer designed to be towed by a motor vehicle and designed, equipped, or used for sleeping, eating, or living quarters. See
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.