What CPA donors give in federal races

High line volume under a $44.5 million headline

$44,519,078 is the occupation-level dollar total. 167,600 is the itemization count. 10,766 is the donor-record count. Mean contribution size is about $266. Mean dollars per donor record is about $4,135. Those means sit toward the modest side among professional-title strings in this extract.

The repeat rate is about 16 itemizations per donor record. That pattern fits a large pool of itemized gifts rather than a handful of outsized checks. Frequency and dollar size are different dimensions; this bucket is heavier on line count than on dollars per line.

These means are not typical-check estimates. A small number of large itemizations can lift the average while most lines remain smaller. The packet does not include a distribution.

CPA is not ACCOUNTANT and not a state board list

ACCOUNTANT is a different occupation page with its own facts. Donors who write the credential abbreviation land here; donors who write the job noun land there. Combining CPA and ACCOUNTANT without showing both source totals would mix keys the FEC file kept apart. This guide cites only the CPA facts: $44,519,078, 167,600 contributions, and 10,766 donors.

The FEC record does not verify that the donor holds an active certified public accountant license. Retired CPAs, firm partners, and people using the letters loosely can all appear. Best-efforts rules do not force a controlled vocabulary. LobbyVault indexes the text that arrived in the bulk download.

What 10,766 donor records can and cannot show

10,766 donor records used CPA on at least one matching itemization. That is not the number of licensed CPAs in the United States, and it is not the number of unique humans after probabilistic matching. Address changes and suffix differences can split records.

A person who listed CPA on some gifts and ACCOUNTANT on others will appear in both occupation totals for the respective lines. Occupation is stored per transaction, not as a lifetime identity field.

Keep employer industry tables on a separate cut

Industry pages answer employer-category questions. A CPA at a public-accounting firm and a CPA inside a manufacturer share this occupation string if they typed CPA. Adding occupation dollars to industry dollars double-counts. Use one filter at a time unless you are tracing a single row.

Open the CPA occupation page for the itemized list. Use the occupations index to see ACCOUNTANT and related titles as separate rows with their own packet facts.

Source, citation, and nonpartisan use

Source: FEC Form 3/3X itemizations, occupation self-reported, indexed on LobbyVault. The three facts do not encode party. Recipient committees are a different join. Cite the numbers as disclosure totals, not as an argument about the accounting profession’s political weight.

A usable sentence is: occupation equals CPA, dollars equal $44,519,078, contributions equal 167,600, donors equal 10,766. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so $44.5 million is itemized activity for this string in the loaded extract.

Treating CPA as three letters in a bulk file

CPA in this extract is $44,519,078 on 167,600 itemizations from 10,766 donor records, or $44.5 million in compact millions. Those dollars are itemized activity on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules indexed on LobbyVault from FEC.gov bulk data. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so they never enter the total. Refunds and memo entries follow FEC presentation in the underlying schedules; this guide does not invent a fourth occupation-level fact. A state board of accountancy can list who may sign an audit. FEC itemizations cannot. They list whoever typed CPA on the occupation line. The occupation field is donor-supplied free text, not a NAICS industry code and not a licensing roster.

Arithmetic means on this key are about $266 per contribution and about $4,135 per donor record, with roughly 16 itemizations per donor record. Means are not medians. The packet has no gift-size distribution and no party split. Neighboring strings such as ACCOUNTANT and longer credential phrases remain other occupation pages unless the bulk extract normalized them to CPA. Combining those keys without naming each source total changes the unit from one FEC string to a homemade cluster. 167,600 lines under $44.5 million is a volume story. Researchers who skip the contribution count will overstate how concentrated the credential looks.

Industry pages group employer-side categories and should not be added to $44,519,078. A person who listed CPA on some gifts and a neighboring title on others will appear in both occupation totals for the respective lines, because occupation is stored per transaction. A public-record citation that stays inside the packet is: occupation equals CPA, dollars equal $44,519,078, contributions equal 167,600, donors equal 10,766. Candidate and committee pages hold the recipient side. LobbyVault does not infer motive from the occupation column.

Researchers who need cycle cuts, employer text, or recipient lists should leave this guide and open the live occupation hub. This file restates harvested packet facts only. Compact millions ($44.5 million) are the same headline amount as $44,519,078, rounded to one decimal place. Keep the contribution count and the donor-record count in any sentence that quotes the dollars, so readers can see whether CPA is a high-volume stack, a concentrated pool, or a high-repeat status label. Exact-string matching is the method. Anything else is a different query.

Questions

How much have CPA-occupation donors given in FEC data?

The CPA occupation string is attached to $44,519,078 in LobbyVault’s FEC bulk index, across 167,600 contributions and 10,766 donor records. The figure is itemized occupation money, not a census of licensed certified public accountants. Occupation is self-reported free text on Form 3 and Form 3X schedules.

Is ACCOUNTANT included in the CPA total?

No. ACCOUNTANT is a separate occupation string with its own dollar, contribution, and donor facts. This page covers the CPA key only: $44,519,078, 167,600 contributions, and 10,766 donors. Combining the two without naming both keys changes the unit from one FEC string to a homemade cluster.

What is the average CPA contribution in this file?

Dividing $44,519,078 by 167,600 itemizations yields about $266 per contribution. Dividing by 10,766 donors yields about $4,135 per donor record. Both are means, not medians. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total.

Does listing CPA prove the donor is a licensed accountant?

No. Occupation is self-reported free text. The FEC record does not verify a state board license. Private-firm staff, retirees, and people using the abbreviation loosely can all appear under CPA. Quote 167,600 contributions and 10,766 donor records with the $44,519,078 total.