James Checksfield As A Controlled Informant: Case Study

During the time of the scandal, which broke in mid-2005, PBS&J had 4,000 employees in 75 offices in 24 states (Barnett, 2007). A number of high-profile projects were under construction with FDOT, OOCEA, and TxDOT. The funds from these projects were being brought into the firm at a rapid rate; however, PBS&J contained a flimsy internal controls system which facilitated the embezzlement that eventually took place. The major players of the scandal were located in the firm’s Miami office. They were Scott DeLoach, then chief financial officer (CFO); Maria Garcia, an accounting employee who was in charge of the office’s database and bank reconciliations; and Rosario Licata, a bookkeeper who maintained the firm’s benefits bank account (Eubanks, 2016).

The Bank Secrecy Act requires businesses to keep records and file reports that are determined to have a high level of usefulness in criminal, tax, and regulatory matters. The documents filed by business under the Bank Secrecy Act requirements are greatly used by law enforcement agencies, both domestic and international to identify, detect and deter money laundering whether it is in extension of a criminal enterprise, terrorism, tax evasion or other illegal activity (Fritsch et al,

The tax courts provide us with a number of scenarios similar to the one faced by Adrian. In Kuhler v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue 18 T.C. 31 (1952) a taxpayer received a commission check on the evening of December 31, 1946, past banking hours, and reported its amount

Jack Rosenbaum, President of Rosenbaum Inc., a rare coin business owner. Jack was ripping off the IRS of more than 200 million dollars by sending in double tax returns. One company would have a net operating loss and receive a tax refund while the parent company filed a consolidated tax return. After Jeff did further investigation, he soon realized that the company’s shop had been audited but not the retail audits. The audit had been conducted by Tony Blake, a Revenue Agent; it became apparent that he was a crook. Very soon after Jeff uncovered this information someone tried

“ In order to prevent fraudulent financial reports and statements, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants(AICPA) has created ethical standards” (Ethical standards in a financial statement, 2011). These standards aim to make financial professionals accountable for their accounting practices. This includes the integrity of financial reporting and ensuring financial reporting is done fairly and factually. Financial accountants and professionals should maintain professional integrity, objectivity, and independence to reduce the risk of resulting legal action, loss of profits, and a poor reputation if improper financial reporting is done (Ethical standards in a financial statement, 2011).

According to Benston (1977) an unaware public pays for government-required accounting disclosure. Sunstein (1999) claims that disclosure of information allows the federal government to control public and private conduct. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Over the decades accounting regulations have come from various sources. The Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the Internal Revenue Service and Interstate Commerce Commission are examples of regulatory bodies that promulgate accounting regulations. A more recent example occurred during the 1970s. During the Watergate era there were a number of investigations, some of which affected American business. One of the investigations, conducted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1975, revealed that 19 publiclyheld corporations had made illegal campaign contributions and that these contributions were made from cash accounts that had not been recorded on the corporation’s books. (Heldack, 1977) This prompted the SEC to launch an investigation into what were considered ―questionable payments.‖ What came out of the investigation was that many U.S. multinational corporations were making hundreds of millions of dollars in ―questionable payments‖ to foreign officials to obtain business. As a result, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) was unanimously adopted by Congress in 1977. Bribery of foreign officials to obtain business for the corporation

The criminal complaint, filed in federal court in New York, offers the clearest view yet of one of the biggest cases of alleged insider dealing ever. In its lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, the Commission alleges that the defendants violated the antifraud, periodic reporting, record keeping, and internal controls

This check was one of numerous checks paid by the Committee to Re-Elect The President and discovered to be cashed due to of Gordon Liddy, cheif of the comittee to re-elect the presedent. This led the investigators to Liddy and eventually to people who worked directly in the President's Administration. Administration officials discussed this situation with President Nixon who ordered a cover up and diversion of FBI , which was and is

Issue #3: The current recommendations by the IRS are actually contained in a sample conflict of interest policy on the IRS website: http://www.irs.gov/instructions/i1023/ar03.html

Seidman addresses an IRS summons issued to an accounting firm for documents related to work the firm performed for a corporation under IRS investigation. Among the documents the IRS requested was a log containing the identities of investors in potentially abusive tax shelters. The investors petitioned to intervene and assert that revealing their identities was a violation of the tax advice privilege. The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the investors’ claim, holding that the investors failed to show that confidential communications would be revealed if their identities were disclosed to the IRS. Because federal regulations require that accounting firms maintain

The second step under Trevino and Nelson is to define the ethical issues. In this case, the American manager felt that it was dishonest to underreport earnings on the tax form. The manager also identified the payment of bustarella, which was viewed almost as a corrupt practice. These issues were ethical to the American manager, who assumed that because the process was different and less transparent than the American tax system that it lacked ethical integrity. To the Italians, however, neither practice is considered to be unethical, and should not have been an ethical dilemma for the manager. The manager was caught feeling that there was an ethical dilemma because such practices conflicted with his

It is imperative for tax professionals to understand the ethics environment of the practice. This paper is focused on the ethical responsibilities of tax professionals.

Businesses, investors, creditors rely on accounting ethics. The accounting profession requires honesty, consistency with industry standards, and compliance with laws and regulations. The ethics increase the responsibility and integrity of accounting professionals, and public trust. The ethical requirements influence the management behavior and decision-making. The financial scandal of Enron and Arthur Anderson demonstrates the failure of fundamental ethical framework, such as off-balance sheet transactions, misrepresentation of financial statements, inaccurate disclosure, manipulations with earnings, etc. The confronted accounting profession and concern for ethics in businesses forced regulators to revise the conceptual framework of accounting processes.

Ethical issues have greatly transformed in our lives since the great Enron, Xerox and other huge corporations proposed big profits showing earnings of billions of dollars and yet in reality facing bankruptcy. These corporations faced great trouble with the federals and state for manipulating financial statements. But not only corporations can be blamed on this, accounting firms were involved in this as much as the corporations were. With the business stand point, ethics comprises of principles and standards that guide behavior. Investors, traders, customers, and legal system determine whether a specific action is ethical or unethical. Ethical issue is a vast subject, but we will look at the niche

1. After discovering the suspicious items in JWP’s accounting records, should he have taken a different course of action than he did?