Ethical guidelines of an accountant Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ethical guidelines of an accountant - Essay Example The globalization of most industries means new standards of financial reporting have to be followed.In many instances,new standards had indeed been adopted by accounting bodies eager to be of help in contributing to the promotion of the interest of various stakeholders such as varied investors,government regulatory bodies and the employees who also have a stake. Because of their confusing and complex nature, one has to be a detective of sorts to be able to sort out all the information contained in financial statements.Analysis of these statements require a certain degree of skill to be able to make fair comparisons between firms operating in various countries. Admittedly, there had been several efforts to standardize all the accounting rules and practices beginning in 1973 and took more concrete form by 1998 with a creation of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).My paper deals with the ethical issues confronting most chartered accountants today. It is because the prof ession of accounting is often a murky environment with various rules and regulations subject to different interpretations. In other words, most of the rules were formed from mere opinions of authoritative bodies. As such, opinions can be subjected to challenges. Despite all the efforts at standardization, there is still a long way to go before all accountants follow the same rules and procedures. Chartered accountants can be subjected to all various pressures for them to fudge the numbers if necessary. This puts them in awkward positions of conflicts of interest.