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The Code Of Professional Conduct

Decent Essays

Weaknesses Conflictions in the Professional Code The AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, regardless of its numerous strengths, the Code of Professional Conduct has some serious weaknesses. The accounting profession is constantly changing and making improvements. The first weakness in the Code of Professional Conduct deals with conflictions within the code due to the code being constantly updated (Dienhart, 1995). Dienhart, Lunday, and Tavani have all criticized professional codes because the directives cause conflictions with one another, whether it is direct or indirect. Rule 301 and SAS No. 99 are examples when the code is having conflicting standards. Rule 301, Client Confidential Information, states that professionals shall not …show more content…

With professions having this tremendous knowledge regarding a company’s financial standing and not being able to disclose the information to the public it can create major investment errors. With these restrictions in place by the AICPA the accountants and auditors “… in a position of having to choose between earning a livelihood or making a proper ethical choice” (Synder, 2011). Accounting Scandals The accounting and auditing profession has been constantly making headlines throughout the past decades because of litigation against accountants. This is a major weakness in the Code of Professional Conduct that caused the accounting profession to lose the respect it has gain. In the 1990s to the 2000s accounting scandals from the Waste Management scandal in 1998 to the Saytam scandal in 2009 was discovered one after another, which only caused the public to lose confidence and harshly criticize in the profession. The scandal that started the series of accounting scandals is Waste Management Inc. Waste Management Inc. is a publicly traded waste management company that reported 1.7 billion dollars in fake earnings (US Government Accountability Office, 2002). The accounting scandal was discovered in 1998 when a new chief executive officer took a look at the financial statements. The

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