Ethics And Ethics In Accounting

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Accounting ethics is primarily a combination of business and human ethics; the moral of theses ethics is to “serve the public interest.” As accountants and auditors they need to follow moral values and judgments in regards to accountancy. When working with fortune 500 companies they have a duty to also follow professional ethics. Accounting was first introduced by Luca Pacioli, and advanced by government and professional groups. Ethics is commonly taught in all accounting courses in higher education and continues to be taught by companies when training accountants and auditors. With so many different accounting services now provided by accounting firms they have a duty to have ethical standards. In recent years fraud resulting from accounting …show more content…

The AAPA was then renamed and now is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. “The AICPA then developed five divisions of ethical principles that its members should follow: "independence, integrity, and objectivity"; "competence and technical standards"; "responsibilities to clients"; "responsibilities to colleagues"; as well as "other responsibilities and practices". Each one of these divisions provided procedures on how a Certified Public Accountant should act as a professional. To enforce theses five divisions of ethical principles; an accountant could be barred from practicing if they failed to comply with the …show more content…

Ethics provided people with a sense of judgment to act in the interest of the public as well as give credibility to the accounting profession. After the Enron scandal laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 were developed. The most recent reform took place in July 2010 when President Obama signed "The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act". This act covers a broad range of changes. “The Act, ends too big to fail bail outs, advance warning system, transparency and accountability for exotic instruments, executive compensation and corporate governance, protects investors, and enforces regulations on the books.” The legislation also resulted in letting Congress authorized the SEC to provide monetary awards to whistleblowers that come forward with information. Whistleblowers get a minimum of $1,000,000 sanction and the rewards are between 10% and 30% of the dollar amount collected. With the help of whistleblowers we can identify fraud and other unethical behaviors early on. The early the problem is caught the less harm happens to

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