To provide CPAs and other finance professionals with ethics education that satisfies the Massachusetts CPA ethics CPE requirement and strengthens their ability to apply professional standards, regulatory expectations, and sound ethical judgment in daily practice.

If the dates listed on the calendar do not fit your schedule, Massachusetts licensed CPAs may satisfy their Ethics requirement by taking Ethics for CPAs.

• Ethics pre-test
• General ethics
• Ethics for professionals
• Fiduciary responsibility
• Data hosting and independence
• Tax preparation and Circular 230
• CPA ethics – AICPA Code of Professional Conduct
• Final exam

To satisfy the Ethics requirement for Massachusetts CPAs and emphasize the need for prudent ethical judgment when interpreting the rules and determining the public interest. You’ll use case studies and discussion questions to understand how to apply the rules to real ethical dilemmas.

Massachusetts licensed CPAs may satisfy their Ethics requirement by taking Ethics for CPAs.

DETAILED LEARNING OBJECTIVES

• Identify the different ways to define ethics

• Recognize the motivations for ethical behavior as identified in Kohlberg’s stages of moral development

• Identify the professional mandates that prevent CPAs from claiming ignorance of the rules and standards applicable to their ethical behavior

• Identify the accounting issues leading to potentially unethical behavior 

• Identify the licensing board’s primary consideration when disciplining a licensee

• Recognize engagements in which a CPA is working in a fiduciary capacity

• Recognize the practitioner’s responsibilities to the IRS in regards to client information requests

• Identify the time frame in which a practitioner must obtain the informed consent of clients in which the practitioner has a conflict of interest

• Determine the perspective from which accountancy boards view the AICPA Code of Conduct

• Determine the single most important consideration when determining the most ethical choice of action(s)

• Recognize the primary concern with the performance of attest services for non-attest clients

• Identify threats to the practitioner’s integrity and objectivity

• Identify the work paper retention requirements of the Code of Conduct

• Identify the entity responsible for the promulgation of US GAAP

• Recognize the primary concerns with contingent fees within the profession

• Recognize confidentiality restrictions in the accounting profession

• Determine those records that must be provided to a client, upon request, even where fees are outstanding 

• Identify permissible and non-permissible CPA firm names

• Ethics defined
• Professional responsibility
• Rules enforcement
• Causes of unethical behavior
• Disciplinary actions
• License mobility
• AICPA Code of Professional Conduct
• Accounting principles
• Acts discreditable
• Advertising
• Independence, conflicts of interest and objectivity
• Record retention and ownership of information
• Contingent fees, commissions and referral fees
• Tax preparation and IRS Circular 230
• Rules governing unprofessional conduct
  – For all professions
  – For CPAs specifically