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The Code Of Professional Conduct

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The AICPA requires members to follow the Code of Professional Conduct in order for there to be guidance and rules in regards to CPAs performance of professional responsibilities. One of these rules includes independence, where the accountant should not have a financial interest in the client. More specifically, within independence, the accountant should follow Interpretation 101-5: loans from financial institution clients and related terminology, where independence is considered impaired if a covered member holds a loan from a client “owning 10 percent or more of a client.” However, there are exceptions which are grandfathered loans and other permitted loans, which show cases where these loans would not be impaired. The AICPA stands …show more content…

More specifically, “accountants in public practice should be independent in fact and appearance when providing auditing and other attestation services” (AICPA Independence and Conflicts of Interest). Independence in fact means ___. Independence in appearance means ___. Independence will be impaired under the AICPA rules if an accountant does either of three things. First, if the accountant “makes investment decisions on behalf of audit clients or otherwise has discretionary authority over an audit client’s investments.” Second, if the accountant “executes a transaction to buy or sell an audit client’s investment.” Third and lastly, if the accountant “has custody of assets of the audit client, such as taking temporary possession of securities purchased by the audit client.” In these cases, Independence would be impaired because the accountant would be aware of insider information, which could benefit the accountant when making their own personal investment decisions. However, there are ways in which accountants can provide services that do not impair independence. First, if the accountant “recommends the allocation of funds that an audit client should invest in various asset classes, based on the client’s risk tolerance and other factors.” Second if the accountant “provides a comparative analysis of the audit client’s investments to third-party benchmarks.” Third, if the accountant “reviews the manner in

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