need help with peer’s response

need help with peer’s response
Peers’ response: In your response to at least two peers, discuss actions and consequences that should be taken in response to a violation of their selected principle. Use the following questions to help guide your responses: What actions or strategies could you or others take to remediate the ethical issues? What are some repercussions of not abiding by your peer’s selected principle from a legal, business, or general professional perspective? Peer 1 The principle I selected is Due Care. Due care is the continuous monitoring and observing of the quality of service and due diligence to excel in meeting or exceeding standards. To continually improvein the knowledge, compliance, and quality of service provided. The value this principle brings to practitioners, businesses, and clients are that the practitioner shows and proves its value in adhering to and applying these standards in conducting business. Inshowing their integrity and commitment to running their business and supplying their services to the highest standard. Due care can apply to a variety of situations or particular circumstances, one’s duty or responsibility, such as in driving or performing background checks. In the accounting profession, a case or circumstance could be Auditing. As in many businesses, a system of checks and balances ensures accuracy, reveals weaknesses, and uncovers any error in reporting or documenting, regardless of intentional or unintentional. Examples are misdirecting funds, not recording expenses or income appropriately, recording more sales revenue than occurred, failing to report investments, failing to report assets in a way that affects taxes, or generally falsifying accounting records. The ethical response in these situations is to report the activity to the appropriate agency. Another answer could be addressing and solving the issue internally, depending on the circumstance and how “high up the ladder” it occurred. Unfortunately, the majority of cases of fraud are due to excessive greed. An article I found from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) 2020 Report to the Nations stated that each case costs an organization an average of $1.5 million. Also noted in this report was that out of the 2.504 fraud cases from 125 countries analyzed by the ACFE, causing a total of more than $3.6 billion. One famous accounting scandal was Enron, in 2001. The company’s two CEOs hid billions of dollars of debt off the company’s balance sheet using accounting loopholes while inflating the company’s earnings. The two also pressured the company’s auditing firm, Arthur Anderson, to ignore the issue. In the end, both CEOs were convicted. One was sentenced to 24 years; the other CEO passed away before sentencing. The scandal resulted in over a $74 billion loss (CFI, 2022).  Whether a Business or individual Observes technical and ethical standards and continually strives to improve on the skills and quality of services, it will lead to a good reputation. This, in turn, leads to success financially and professionally. Peer 2 Hi Everyone,      The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) provides a valuable reference guide in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct document. It is hard not to look at accounting when reflecting on business failures over the last 20 years and not think of the importance of Integrity in the industry. From WorldCom, Enron, Leeman Brothers, and even political parties there have been questions on integrity related to accounting. Even in the most recent change in leadership at Disney, there were questions about have content on their streaming service was accounted for. Why is all of this important? The AICPA defines their integrity principle in five bullet points. In essence the goal is to ensure confidence and trust in the profession, promote honesty, act in customers best interest and frequently evaluate their own actions to ensure they are doing the right thing (AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, 2016, pp. 5-6). For any of us this means did I act in a way that was honest and accurate that did not seek to enhance my own personal gain. If we can answer yes, then we are well on the way to acting with integrity.      When applying this practically it can be found in a wide area of use cases. When individuals use a CPA for assistance with their taxes, they are looking for someone that they can trust with their finances. Someone that has question around their integrity will not be looked at favorable by someone making that decision. In business especially with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in place, executives seek individuals that are detailed and accurate as they comply with financial reporting laws. This is important to them especially as the executives are personally signing off on financial statements on their accuracy so having someone with integrity is key to their trust. This all comes with a balance to maintain their own personal integrity. Sometimes clients will push to have their accountants tweak a number here or there to make things look better than they are. It could even be positioned with a quid pro quo such as I will do this for you if you do this for me. There can even be those moments being so busy that they are tempted not to keep up on the current tax laws or review completed work to catch up. In any of these cases it is important to take the time and reflect on two simple truths. Once a path that is not above reproach is taken, it is very hard to go back, and one should be able to be confident that they did the best that they could in order to not live a life full of regrets. So, it may take a bit longer to stay current and do things the right way, but at the end of the day those individuals can sleep soundly knowing they did the right thing.