AICPA Code of Professional Conduct

Responsibilities

As members of the AICPA, practitioners are expected to be aware of their responsibility to the users of their professional services. AICPA members also have a continuing responsibility to cooperate with other members and practitioners to improve the profession of accounting, maintain the public?s confidence in the profession, and carry out the profession?s special responsibilities of self-governance.

The AICPA defines the accounting profession?s public as consisting of clients, credit grantors, governments, employers, investors, the business and financial community, and others who rely on the objectivity and integrity of CPAs to maintain the orderly function of commerce. The public interest is the collective well-being of the community of people and institutions the profession serves. When members encounter conflicting pressures from those groups, members should act with integrity and be guided by their responsibility to the public. The public relies on CPAs to act with integrity, objectivity, due professional care, and a genuine interest in serving the public.

Integrity

Merriam-Webster?s Dictionary defines integrity as ?resolute adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values; incorruptibility.? That definition says a lot about integrity as a foundational value; but the Code describes integrity specifically in terms of the member?s responsibility. Integrity requires a member to be honest and candid, yet respect the constraints of client confidentiality. Practitioners can make inadvertent mistakes or have honest differences of opinion and still maintain integrity. However, practitioners cannot practice deceit or subordination of principle and keep their integrity. Integrity is measured in terms of what is right and just, and it also requires a member to observe the principles of objectivity, independence, and due care. Integrity requires a member to observe both the form and the spirit of technical and ethical standards. It is the quality against which a member must test all decisions.

Objectivity and Independence

Merriam-Webster?s Dictionary defines objectivity in general terms as ?an expressing or dealing with facts or conditions without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.? The Code discusses objectivity as a state of mind that adds value to a member?s services, but also imposes an obligation to be impartial, intellectually honest, and free of conflicts of interest. To be independent, members should avoid relationships that may appear to impair their objectivity in rendering attestation (financial statements) services.

Members in public practice maintain objectivity and independence through a continual assessment of client relationships and public responsibility. Members who provide attestation services should be independent in both fact and appearance. In providing all other services, members should maintain objectivity and avoid conflicts of interest.

Due Care

Due care requires competence and diligence, and obligates performance of professional services to the best of the AICPA member?s ability. Competence begins with education and experience and is maintained by continual learning throughout a member?s professional life. In all engagements and responsibilities, a member undertakes to achieve a level of competence that assures the quality of the member?s services meets the high level of professionalism required by the Fundamental Principles of the Code. Being competent also requires consultation when an engagement exceeds the member?s or firm?s own level of competence. Members are responsible for assessing whether their own education, experience, and judgment are adequate for the engagement. Due care also requires adequate planning and supervision.

This Fundamental Principle requires that AICPA members consider whether specific services to be provided are consistent with the other Principles of integrity, objectivity and independence, and due care. Members should do the following:

·        Practice in firms with quality control systems.

·        Assess, according to individual judgment, whether an activity is consistent with their role as professionals.