Ethics
The CPA firm is under pressure to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace. The global environment affects not only large corporations, but smaller entities as well. Additionally, the customer(s) are constantly being wooed by the competition, lower prices, and online convenience that was not available only a few short years ago. In order to maintain and grow the firm, action must be taken to keep clientele from leaving, while enticing new clients to move their business to the firm. It seems as if globalization has brought added pressure to small firms, yet opportunities still abound. This is not the 'normal' business environment that one might expect. As one recent study found however; "the management of abnormal situations becomes more important every day" (Aguilar, Prato, Bravo, Rivas, 2009, p. 406).
There are certain aspects of accounting that customers expect from their accountant and the firm that he/she works for. One of the first areas of concern is the ethical treatment of the customer's information, the right of privacy and the security with which the customer's private data is secured. Studies have shown that "with thoughtful planning, it is possible to balance the integrity of and access to the historical record of sensitive documents" (Wiener, Gilliland, 2011, p. 16). That being said, when an accounting firm is faced with lowering its costs (like the firm in the case study) and decides to do so by hiring non-CPA employees to handle sensitive customer information, the security of that information definitely comes into play. If the customer confirms (or even suspects) that the data and information is not being treated in a manner that displays care and consideration of the data then the client could easily pull the account and go elsewhere.
The CPA firm must at all times maintain its corporate image in order to attract, and keep, the business...
There is "…Corrosion, especially during the last two decades, of the ideal of the lawyer-statesman, an ideal that joins the narrowly prudential character of private counsel with the broader virtues of public services" (Klinkenborg, 32). The operative philosophy that "…money will always be a vastly more far-reaching form of power than the command of ideas" explains the "enormous growth" of the number of lawyers in America in recent years,
ethics in the business and accounting communities has been a topic of broad discussion. From the collapse of Enron to the mishaps of Andersen the country has seen the most tumultuous ethical behavior in the history of our nation. The purpose of this discussion is to define ethics and the reasons why ethical behavior is important among accountants and business leaders. We will also explore ethical codes within the
Removing losses from the company's books made the main corporation look more attractive. Enron appeared to be operating at a profit; a key factor in the valuation of any company's stock. By virtue of this "success," Enron was able to raise even more money for more investments. The architects of all this "growth" profited accordingly. Ken Lay and his associates held large amounts of exceedingly valuable and overvalued stock. When
FASB ASC (360-10-35-21), a long-lived asset that undergoes a change can be tested for recoverability. A decrease in market price could trigger this event. An adverse change could trigger it, and so on. For the case described by Persellin et al. (2014), either of these two events could be used to test the land's recoverability. An impairment event has more than likely occurred. According to 360-10-35-31, a "primary asset of an
As one commentator has stated, the presence of two different sets of accounting rules, each plagued by imprecision and subject to multiple interpretations, gives corporations "two different bites at the apple." (6) What used to be seen as an economically advantageous distinction between tax and financial accounting may now be considered a "credibility gap." (7) (Whitaker, 2005, p. 680) There have of coarse also been historical defenders of the book-tax
Values and Morals in the Accounting Industry The important questions to be addressed are taken from the "…business ethics/corporate social responsibility literature, oriented towards business enterprises but also of relevance to professional bodies: whether being ethical 'pays' in financial terms; and whether formal codes are useful in promoting ethical behavior…" (Cowton, 2009, p. 177). Accountants are charged with carrying out ethical and moral decisions in their everyday work, but judging from some
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