Strongly worded statements and a check-the-box mentality do not guarantee ethical behavior by organizations.
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Ethics
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
User-friendly AICPA ethics code 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
Struggling European nations seen as more corrupt, report shows
In most parts of the world, perceived corruption of countries has remained the same during the past year. That’s good news in New Zealand, Denmark, and Finland, viewed in general as the most transparent. It’s more of the same for Somalia, North Korea, and Afghanistan, viewed as having the highest
Obstacles make PCAOB’s Hanson skeptical about mandatory audit firm rotation
PCAOB member Jay Hanson said Tuesday that he struggles to see how the board would ever be able to create a mandatory audit firm rotation requirement for the U.S. public company auditors it regulates. During a question and answer session at the AICPA Conference on SEC and PCAOB Developments in
Ethics / Compilation & review
Two AICPA committees extended comment deadlines to Nov. 30 on recently proposed revisions to professional standards. The proposed change to the ethics rules would require CPAs who prepare financial statements for attest clients to apply the general requirements of Interpretation No. 101-3, Nonattest Services, to maintain their independence. Proposed changes
Ethics IQ quiz
The AICPA Code of Professional Conduct (AICPA Professional Standards) is an ever-evolving document. Periodically, the JofA publishes answers from AICPA Professional Ethics Division staff to questions asked by AICPA members via the Institute’s Ethics Hotline or on topics related to revisions to the code. This set of questions and answers
Comment deadlines extended on proposed professional standard revisions
Two AICPA committees are extending comment deadlines to Nov. 30 on recently proposed revisions to professional standards. The proposed change to the ethics rules would require CPAs who prepare financial statements for attest clients to apply the general requirements of Interpretation No. 101-3, Nonattest Services, to maintain their independence. The
Proposed revisions clarify responsibilities for preparers
In accordance with recently proposed revisions to professional standards, CPAs who prepare financial statements for clients would consider that a nonattest bookkeeping service and would no longer be required to perform a compilation service with respect to those financial statements unless engaged to do so. The changes, proposed in June
Bridging the ethical divide: Survey finds firms lagging
More organizations are voicing a commitment to ethical performance, but their proclamations do not appear to be matched by action—a disconnect that is emerging as financial professionals are facing more pressure to act unethically. That ethical divide was among the key findings of Managing Responsible Business: A Global Survey on
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