What the institute does
The ITAA grants the titles, organises entry to the profession through examination and traineeship, keeps the public register of members, sets the ethical rules and exercises discipline. It is the body that makes a regulated profession genuinely verifiable.
It also publishes the templates and recommendations firms apply, including those governing the engagement letter.
The titles it governs
The law of 17 March 2019 protects the titles of certified accountant and certified tax advisor, along with the non-certified titles inherited from the former accreditations. It reserves certain professional activities, listed in its article 3, to registered persons, and some of them to certified professionals and statutory auditors alone.
A professional cannot hold both the certified accountant and certified tax advisor titles: they choose one path.
What registration guarantees you
Entrusting your accounts to a registered professional is not an administrative formality. Registration implies controlled initial training, continuing education, enforceable ethical rules, and a disciplinary body before which a client can bring a dispute.
Facing an unregistered person, none of those remedies exist. That is the real difference, and it shows neither on a website nor on a business card.
The public register
The ITAA public register is available online to anyone. It lets you check that a professional or firm is registered, under which title, under which number, and on which list, internal or external. Members are required to report any change to their details to the institute.
What people often confuse
The ITAA and the IRE are two separate institutes. The ITAA governs accountants and tax advisors, who prepare and keep the accounts. The IRE governs statutory auditors, who audit them. An auditor is not a senior accountant: it is a different profession, with its own monopoly on the statutory audit of accounts.
Checking a registration takes a minute and should precede any signature. The firms listed in the AccountMap directory are finance professionals established in Belgium, but the ITAA register remains the official source.