Chief Judge Posner of the U.S. Seventh Circuit stated in 1999, (Quote) "If the taxpayer is accompanied to the audit by a lawyer who is there to deal with issues of statutory interpretation or case law that the revenue agent may have raised in connection with his examination of the taxpayer's return, the lawyer is doing lawyer's work and the attorney-client privilege may attach." (Unquote) [Nelson, 2005]
In United States v. Kovel case, the Court extended the attorney-client privilege to communications between a client and an accountant retained by an attorney. Thus California law recognizes an attorney-accountant-client privilege as a legal entitlement. [Segal, 1997] presents a review of conditions where accountant-client relationship can be considered privileged just like an attorney-client relationship. Segal also cites situation where the privileged is waived by the client's action or if it is considered not applicable due to accountant's work is not considered equivalent of legal services.
Accountant Work Product
The work an accountant performs for a client is accountant's work product. The accountant has to protect the information to protect his client's interests. In an accountant retained by an attorney, this work product could be considered privileged, which protects them from discovery. The documents prepared by an accountant is considered privileged. The work product doctrine protects all memos, briefs, documents, statements, and all tangible things prepared for a possible legal case.
The accountant has a responsibility for the work produced for his client. Recent decisions by courts have made the accountant liable to those persons who reasonably can be expected to benefit from his work...
Ethics and Regulatory Issues Related party transactions reported on by Arthur Andersen & Co. Flaw in the accounting firm's logic Checklist for special projects performed by external auditors Checklist Proposed rules or laws to prevent similar occurrences Enron was one of the Wall Street's favorite blue chip stocks before an accounting scandal of the firm surfaced in 2000. The revelation that company has been misreporting its profits and losses during 1990s crashed the company's stock. The
Ethics, Corporate Governance and Company Social Responsibility Information that is essential to share includes financial performance, business strategy and overall company actions (Pfeffer, 1998). Sharing this information gives the employees the power to evaluate their performance and help them make the right decisions on how they can improve it. This is a simple and very straightforward practice but most companies are still apprehensive about this practice. One cause for this is
Strategic Perspectives in Management Accounting and Finance The main reason for differentiation in the accounting studies seemed to occur due to the functionalist perceptions in the expertise of social studies. According to Dellaportas and Davenport (2008) professions are being separated by occupation on the basis of the level of distinctiveness one occupation has from another; a model first designed by Greenwood in 1975. Abercrombie et al. (1994, p. 335) in their study
Ethics Case Study This report presents an analysis of the ethical challenges faced by two organizations -- one in the not-for-profit sector named Susan G. Komen for the Cure and one in the for-profit sector named The Lubrizol Corporation. A brief background of the two organizations is provided which also includes a description of the ethical challenge. Several alternatives for each organization are discussed along with implications for various stakeholders. Out
For example, Gilbert will be pressured to conduct an audit favorable to a client because this is in the best interest of his partnership with Bradley. This potential for bias is heightened with the fifty-fifty stock split. Thus, both the partnership with Bradley and the financial arrangement are unethical in that they create a potential for bias in violation of the Code of Ethics. Finally, Gilbert has an ethical obligation
Forensic accounting is a special subsection of accounting that goes beyond the typical job description of an accountant. Forensic accountants use their work in courtroom and other legal settings to help. Their primary roles are litigation support and investigative accounting (Zysman, 2012). To do this, forensic accountants combine accounting, auditing, and investigative skills. However, conducting investigations is only one component of a forensic accountant's job description; they also have to
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