paper will discuss the public perception of CPAs in today's society, pitfalls that they may encounter, methods to prevent some of these negative behaviors and consequences they may face should they fall short. Most "Who Do You Trust?" surveys rank politicians, lawyers and used car salesmen at the bottom and certified public accountants at the top. That is because the CPA profession has a squeaky clean image--anal-retentive little wimps who wear thick glasses and cannot get a date. CPAs are known and respected for their honesty. The profession that goes out of its way to project that image, and there is a certain amount of truth to it. Not all accountants are anal-retentive little wimps who cannot get a date.
Many of them are quite articulate. Some are quite lovely, in some schools, more than half of the accounting majors are women. Also, not all CPAs are squeaky clean and respected for their honesty. Some are quite dishonest and are putting a black mark on the image of the entire profession. There is one area where the CPA profession has fallen short of protecting the public interest. The general duty that accountants owe to their clients and the other persons who are affected by their actions is to "exercise the skill and care of the ordinarily prudent accountant" in the same circumstances. Two elements compose the general duty of performance: skill and care. Another element and responsibility is owed to clients and other persons, that is that accountants should observe a standard of ethical or social responsibility. One set of difficulties concerns ethics education's ability to instill the chosen values and to make them stick after the educational process is completed. Instruction in accounting ethics is directed at people whose character-or lack there-of-has largely been formed by the time the instruction occurs. Although such instruction should increase the moral awareness of those who are already predisposed to listen, its effect on the basically self-interested, indifferent, or unethical is questionable. Even those who are positively influenced by ethics instruction, moreover, may still behave irresponsibly if their careers or their livelihoods require them to act in their client's financial interest. Recent pressure to include more ethics instruction in the accounting classroom has placed an emphasis on individuals who have a sen...
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... the trust instilled in me very seriously. I hope that this paper has enlightened you to the pitfalls many certified public accountants face today, both with ethical standards and with impending educational requirements.
Reference Page
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Ethics plays a vital role in developing accurate and high quality financial statements for management, financial institutions, and investors. As management utilizes financial statements to make decisions regarding the operations of the business, it is necessary to review accurate financial statements to make strategic decisions about the future of the organization. Investors and financial institutions require accurate financial statements to make informed decisions upon whether to invest funds into the organization or the wisdom of lending funds to said organization.
Individual Article Review Lily Cobian LAW/421 March 31, 2014 Ramon E. Ortiz-Velez Individual Article Review Introduction My article review is based on Sarbanes-Oxley and audit failure, a critical examination why the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was established and why it is not a guarantee to prevent failure of audits. Sarbanes-Oxley Act talks about scandals of Enron which occurred in 2001 and even more appalling the company’s auditor, Arthur Anderson, found guilty of shredding company documents after finding out Enron Company was going to be audited. The exorbitant amounts of money auditors get paid to hide audit discrepancies was also beyond belief. The article went on to explain many companies hire relatives or friends to do their audits, resulting in fraud, money embezzlement, corruption and even the demise of companies. Resulting in the public losing faith in the accounting profession, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in 2002 by congress was designed to restrict what company owners and auditors can and cannot do. From what I gathered in the article, ever since the implementation of the Sarbanes- Oxley Act there has been somewhat of an improvement but questions are still being asked as to why there are still issues that are not being targeted in hopes of preventing more audit failures. The article also talked about four common causes of audit failure: unintentional auditor mistakes, fraud, fatigue and auditor client relationships. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Code of Professional Conduct clearly states an independent auditor because it produces a credible audit, however, when there is conflict of interest, the relation of a former employer, or a relative or even the fear of getting fire...
Vietnam was really just a pawn in the much larger game of the Cold War. The main political objective behind the Unites States’ involvement in the Vietnam War was to set forth it’s policy of containment prevent the “Domino E...
Adam Smith was born on June 5th, 1723 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. His father was a lawyer and a servant until death. Adams father died when he was only two months old. Adam did not have the greatest childhood but he did have a good education. Being raised by a widowed mother and not having all that he wanted gave Adam the nudge in life that he had to have an education to support his mother and himself. At the age of fourteen he attended the University of Glasgow on a scholarship; this was n...
Adam Smith has developed and created the most influential works of economic, philosophy and beyond. Adam Smith made an economic model for his theory involving the economic market through his books. Adam Smith produced his own book titled “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” which revolved around morals of humans and mercy toward a person or a community. On the other hand, the book did have a slight vision of the rejection of loving yourself and the slim idea what an individual wants for his or her self. Adam Smith also produced another book titled “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” that was based on the concept of the politics of economy. This book also gave the idea that wealth’s amount is determined by the amount of work not by length. Adam Smith’s book eventually g...
Adam Smith was born in a village called Kirkcaldy at 1723, Scotland. His father was a lawyer who married Margaret Douglas in 1720 and died two month after Smith was born. When Adam was fourteen, he earned a scholarship to get in to the University of Glasgow, and later he attended Balliol College at Oxford. After getting educated, Adam started to lecture in 1748 in University of Edinburgh. In 1764, Adam left off teaching in the University of Edinburgh to tutor a duke’s son whose name was Buccleuch. Then after he earned enough money from lecturing, Adam published two books. The first book that Adam wrote was “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” at 1759, and the second book was “An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations,” at 1776. In 1778, Adam was appointed as an administrator of customs. In this job he was to enforce laws against smuggling. Adam Smith was never married, and died at age 67, 1790.
Turner, Robert M. "Ethics and Professionalism: The CPA in Industry." The CPA Journal (1999). Retrieved on 18 September 2006 .
However, it is known that his baptism occurred on June, 1723 (Adam Smith: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2008) (Adam Smith, 2014). Adam Smith was raised by his mother alone, because his father had died a few months before his birth. At the age of fourteen Smith attended the University of Glasgow and then went on to Oxford in 1740. After completing school he became a teacher and then a tutor. In 1759, while Smith was still teaching, he wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Adam Smith: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2008) (Adam Smith, 2014). Later in his life, Smith became a tutor for the young Duke of Buccleuch and travelled in France and Switzerland. In 1766 Adam Smith retired and returned to Scotland. While he was there, he wrote the book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations which is also known as The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith: The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics, 2008). This book was not all of Adam Smith’s ideas. He was just the first person to get them all together and make them into a book (Smith, 2014). The book became influential in the United States. 1776 was not only the year that Adam Smith’s book was published, it is
Moran, J. J. (2008). Employment law: New challenges in the business environment. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
With every business activity come opportunities for fraudulent behavior which leads to a greater demand for auditors with unscathed ethics. Nowadays, auditors are faced with a multitude of ethical issues, and it is even more problematic when the auditors fail to adhere to the standards of professional conducts as prescribed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The objective of this paper is to analyze the auditors’ compliance with the code of professional conduct in the way it relates to the effectiveness of their audits.
As an individual and ambitious accounting student with plans to pursue a career in public accounting, I recognize the importance of understanding my core personal values and behaviors that guide the ethical principles of my everyday actions. I recognize that I have a responsibility to myself, family, future colleagues, future clients, and the general public to follow certain guidelines and conduct myself in an ethical manner. Furthermore, I acknowledge the idea that ethical dilemmas will occur, but I am committed to my “Personal Code of Ethical Values” (as seen above) that represent my desire to live ethically in every facet of my life.
Ethical programming had been left out of the Professional Accounting syllabus due to the argument of whether or not ethics c...
The aim of this paper is to provide the framework of the current professional accounting code of ethics. What are the ethics and how we define them? In this report we try to determine the main ethical principles that will establish the right and
Of the many well-known theorists of modern political time Adam Smiths writings in The Wealth of Nations had contributed to the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. This phase of European history was the rise of science, orientation of problem solving and the concept of the invisible hand and notion of the pin factor by Adam Smith. Adam Smith (1723-1790) had a similar view of human nature as others did, self-interested beings, but that was not his only view. He believed humans became extensions of machines in his most well known theory of Division of labor. In this work, Smith’s view of the state and economic life shapes his ideas of man.
During their absence from school, students forget much of what is learned in the previous school year, notably reading and math skills (French 28). This learning loss disadvantages all students, but harms lower-income students the most. These students typically have little access to the summer learning courses their higher-income counterparts enjoy. This could be one explanation for the eventual large academic gap between lower-income students and higher-income students. What begins as a slow regression every summer, can eventually present itself in a considerable gap once students begin secondary school or higher education (Mazzochi