Questions -
Q1: An accounting professor who is a CPA and member of the AICPA is teaching on on-line class. To help his students learn the material, he has posted the solutions to all the questions and problems at the end of the chapters in the text he uses to a public website for the class. That is, access to the website is not limited to the students enrolled in the class but can be access by anyone. The professor was not the author of the text.
a) Do you believe the professor's action is ethical or not? Why or why not?
b) Do you believe that students who search the internet for instructor solution's manual solutions to help them with graded assignments are acting ethically? Why or why not?
Q2: The wording in audit reports is rigidly regulated and highly standardized. Deviations from the standard wording are only made under very specific circumstances and the specific wording changes are tightly regulated. Do you think it is desirable to have such tight regulation over the wording of the audit report? Why or why not?
Q3: Arthur Andersen went out of business because it was convicted of obstructing justice with it shredded documents related to the Enron Audit. Their conviction was later overturned by the US Supreme court in a rare unanimous decision. Andersen personnel began shredding documents when they learned the SEC was investigating Enron and ceased shredding the documents once the SEC subpoenaed them from Andersen.
a. Was Andersen in violation of the AICPA's Code of Conduct for shredding the documents? Is so, which rule and why?
b. Would then have been in violation of the Code of Conduct if they had not shredded the documents? If so, which rule and why?