I would say that this topic has come up multiple time during the past years and classes. I believe that Ethics and Integrity are extremely important for accounting and accountants. Accountants are dealing with sensitive data, and more importantly with client’s money information. Ethical codes are the fundamental principles that accounting professionals choose to abide by to enhance their profession, maintain public trust, and demonstrate honesty and fairness. Ethics and integrity should go hand in hand in the accounting profession. A critical component of trust is making unbiased decisions and recommendations that benefit the client. Conflicts of interest, demand exposure under independence guidelines. Benefiting from the sale of one financial product over another could lead to a bias that skews financial advice to a client.

Nowadays you see Movies about blatant fraud, theft and corruption but as you see at the end, those characters never end well. The same can very well be applied to real life situations. Unethical accounting occurs when businesses bend accounting rules or falsify their financial statements to present a more favorable picture than actually exists. More than likely any one that acts unethical can face civil and criminal penalties.

Patricia
Oser