New AICPA ethics standards address independence, confidentiality, and transfer of client files related to mergers and acquisitions.
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Ethics
It’s all relative: How CPAs navigate family businesses
CPAs should help a family business operate in a professional fashion.
What does it mean to be transparent?
The goal of transparency is to establish and maintain the trust of the organization’s key stakeholders.
New marijuana laws create opportunities, risks for CPAs
Because marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, CPAs will need to carefully consider potential risks associated with businesses operating in this industry.
Maintaining independence with nonattest services
Clients must meet responsibilities, and safeguards can be put in place to prevent impairments to independence. Education is important for clients and CPAs, and proper documentation is a must.
6 ways not-for-profits can fortify ethics
This column offers tips to help not-for-profit leaders protect their organization’s reputation and instill public confidence.
6 ethical questions about Big Data
Organizations must consider the ethical use of data collected from various devices.
How to get answers to your ethics questions
Even CPAs who are well-versed in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct sometimes have questions about how it should be applied.
Creating and shaping an ethical culture
Strongly worded statements and a check-the-box mentality do not guarantee ethical behavior by organizations.
What’s your fraud IQ?
Organizations seeking to prevent and detect fraud can greatly boost their chances of success by instituting a strong ethics program. How can you develop and deploy a good ethics program? What are the characteristics of an ethical work environment? Test your knowledge in this month’s Fraud IQ quiz.
Ethics, reputation, and compliance gain as corporate priorities
Businesses are placing increasing emphasis on ethics and compliance, and the area is set to gain further importance in the near future.
Applied ethics
The revised AICPA Code of Professional Conduct is accessible on a dynamic electronic platform that allows users to conduct basic and advanced searches, and boasts many other features. Get ready for the revised code’s effective date, Dec. 15, 2014, by trying to answer these questions with the new platform at pub.aicpa.org/codeofconduct.
Are organizations hindering employee whistleblowing?
Some measures organizations undertake to promote fraud reporting sometimes have the opposite effect. What can management do to encourage whistleblowing? This article offers a series of suggestions.
All in a dishonest day’s work
It’s difficult to believe, but sometimes CPA firm employees, and even partners, steal from clients. While a CPA firm’s leaders may believe this would never happen to them, claim experience in the AICPA Professional Liability Insurance Program demonstrates this does occur.
Highlights of ethics research
The authors distill research published in tax and accounting journals of interest to busy practitioners. This article focuses on academic research in ethics.
Ethics made easier: How to use the revised AICPA Code of Professional Conduct
The revised AICPA Code of Professional Conduct is accessible on a dynamic electronic platform that allows users to conduct and save basic and advanced searches. The platform includes features such as pop-ups for defined terms, the ability to create and name bookmarks, and create and save notes, as well as hyperlinking to content in the code and to external nonauthoritative material issued by staff of the Ethics Division.
Revised AICPA code of ethics … What’s the fuss?
If all goes as planned, a revised AICPA Code of Professional Conduct will be adopted by the Professional Ethics Executive Committee at its Jan. 28–29 meeting. In stark contrast to today’s code, the reformatted ethics code is intuitively organized. It separates the guidance by line of business, then by topic, and topics are further broken down as necessary into subtopics and sections. In addition, a number of substantive changes were made to existing guidance.
Lessons learned: Practical tips to help avoid common EBP audit and reporting errors
Employee benefit plan auditors can use this guidance to avoid relying on improper certifications or overrelying on certifications from trustees or custodians, which can result in inappropriately limiting the scope of the audit.
Independence is in the eye of the beholder
The independence of CPAs is the hallmark of the profession. As such, accountants put forth significant focus and effort to comply with independence requirements related to everything from investments to business and employment relationships to services delivered to clients. But being what accountants call independent in “fact” isn’t enough. CPAs
User-friendly AICPA Code of Ethics on horizon
Ethical decisions often need to be reached quickly, but the AICPA’s Code of Professional Conduct (ethics code) is not structured for quick and easy navigation. A proposed reformatted ethics code is meant to change that. AICPA members are invited to comment on the proposal until Aug. 15. The current ethics
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