Ethical issues in accounting

Running head : ETHICAL ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING

Ethical Issues in Accounting

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Ethical Issues on Accounting

Society is composed of many institutions that have various purpose and position . These institutions may sometime have contradicting goals Money is something people work hard for making it such a sensitive issue . Disputes regarding money are often entangled in heavy disputes and are hard to settle . The accounting is the field that specializes in the job of taking care of other people

's money issues . Ironically , the accounting business has been bombarded by controversies regarding how they do their job and how they settle disputes if there are any Practicing accountants consequently developed an image of being either strictly professional or , at worst , dishonest . Unfortunately for the accounting field , it is considered by many that moral standards of this field are deteriorating

This is where ethics come into play . It is very problematic to weigh issues without a set of conventions to guide them in the decision making . Ethics came form the Latin ethos , that means character and customs . Ethics basically deals with how people interact with each other . Ethics also sets what is good or bad , right or wrong but definitely much broader than the common notions of the rightness or wrongness of things (Cornwell University Law School . On the academic terms , ethics pertains to not just personal feelings , religion , laws Feelings most of the time leads us to do unethical acts . Being religious too doesn 't necessarily mean that one is being ethical . Of course religion sets very high ethical standards . But not all people are religious , non-religious people also have their own ethical standards Also , being ethical doesn 't necessarily mean abiding by the law . Most people view the law as having the same grounds as ethics . Laws are formulated to meet ethical standards . But like feelings , the law can have certain biases , therefore can be sometimes can be viewed as unethical . Since ethics is basically right or wrong , it proves to be a very important tool such problematic fields such as accounting

Codes of professional conduct

Many fields of profession formulate a highly developed detailed set of codes to guide them in their practice . They have allotted a considerable amount of their time and resources just to come up with these codes These set of codes are more commonly regarded as professional codes In the case of accounting , The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants or AICPA has Codes of Professional Conduct which serves as ethical reference . Much of these codes were later merged with the public law . The merging of the codes to the law gave it much more enforceability . Setting aside the technical education , accounting undergraduates were also given ethics courses before they conduct practice in the field . They may have discussed basic ethical . They might have been supplied a lecture of the codes of professional conduct . The generally accepted set of codes for accounting is supplied by...