BUS 607 Week 6 Discussion 1 Professional Responsibility

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Discuss two of the following items:  Discuss the importance of becoming familiar with the various ways an accountant can be held liable. What are the common principles to all of the forms of liab... ility? How do you anticipate being able to navigate a successful career without incurring liability? Under what circumstances do you feel accountants are more likely to incur liability and how would you suggest avoiding those situations?  Explain the difference between the attorney-client privilege and the accountant-client privilege. Why is this an important distinction? Why do you think that the law doesn’t provide the same level of privilege for accountants as it does for attorneys?  In 2008, the SEC approved a plan to replace GAAP and GAAS with IFRS. Explain the general differences in these standards. Why do you think the SEC is not using IFRS. Do you think this is a good change or a bad change? Why? Discuss the importance of becoming familiar with the various ways an accountant can be held liable. What are the common principles to all of the forms of liability? How do you anticipate being able to navigate a successful career without incurring liability? Under what circumstances do you feel accountants are more likely to incur liability and how would you suggest avoiding those situations? Accountants may be held liable more often than other professions because of the number of possible investors as well as firm creditors and these numbers can be in the millions. The numbers of parties that are suffering from a loss can lead to the amounts that may exceed the personal liability insurance. Accountants can be held liable for several things, inadequate performance, unreasonable estimates, breach of contract-torts, ordinary torts, gross torts, fraud-misrepresentation by a person or material fact, among other things. The Rico Act, government laws and regulations, such as the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 are sources of liability on accountants (Miller, 2014). One must ensure that he/she have no incurred liabilities in order to maintain a clean successful career. Investigating their clients in order to determine if the client is worth helping without tarnishing ones record and reputation or getting involved in unlawful things that the client may be involved in. comply with GAAS and professional ethics. Explain the difference between the attorney-client privilege and the accountant-client privilege. Why is this an important distinction? Why do you think that the law doesn’t provide the same level of privilege for accountants as it does for attorneys? Attorney-client privilege is protected by law because it allows for an attorney to provide counsel or advice to his/her client who is facing a trial or charges. It’s a privilege base on a “need” for a client to disclose all information such as facts on a client’s case (Miller, 2014). In this case the client holds the power to either allow for his/her discussion of the case or not despite court order. On the other hand, accountant-client relationships are only recognized in a few states in which these states allow the clients to chose if they would like to reveal his/her communications in court or not (Miller, 2014). The other states that do not recognize accountant-client relationships abide by the common law, which states that if a court orders an accountant must disclose information about his/her client to the court in which the federal law does not recognize accountant-client communications (Miller, 2014). The importance for such distinction lies on an attorney bei [Show More]

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