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visit the AICPA web site and read et section 50 to 57 of the code of professional conduct and bylaws. prepare a memo to your professor setting forth the important professional guidelines incorporated in the code. For each principle you identify, provide an example of how that principle might impact you in your career as a forensic accountant. ET Section 51 Preamble .01 MembershipintheAmericanInstituteofCertiedPublicAccountants is voluntary. By accepting membership, a certied public accountant assumes an obligation of self-discipline above and beyond the requirements of laws and regulations. .02 These Principles of the Code of Professional Conduct of the American Institute of Certied Public Accountants express the profession's recognition of its responsibilities to the public, to clients, and to colleagues. They guide members in the performance of their professional responsibilities and express the basic tenets of ethical and professional conduct. The Principles call for an unswervingcommitmenttohonorablebehavior,evenatthesacriceofpersonal advantage. ET Section 52 Article IResponsibilities In carrying out their responsibilities as professionals, members should exercise sensitive professional and moral judgments in all their activities. .01 As professionals,certied public accountants perform an essential role in society. Consistent with that role, members of the American Institute of Certied Public Accountants have responsibilities to all those who use their professional services. Members also have a continuing responsibility to cooperate with each other to improve the art of accounting, maintain the public's condence,andcarryouttheprofession'sspecialresponsibilitiesforself-governance. The collective efforts of all members are required to maintain and enhance the traditions of the profession. ET Section 53 Article IIThe Public Interest Members should accept the obligation to act in a way that will serve the public interest, honor the public trust, and demonstrate commitment to professionalism. .01 A distinguishing mark of a profession is acceptance of its responsibility to the public. The accounting profession's public consists of clients, credit grantors, governments, employers, investors, the business and nancial community, and others who rely on the objectivity and integrity of certied public accountants to maintain the orderly functioning of commerce.This reliance imposes a public interest responsibility on certied public accountants.The public interest is dened as the collective well-being of the community of people and institutions the profession serves. .02 In discharging their professional responsibilities, members may encounter conicting pressures from among each of those groups. In resolving those conicts, members should act with integrity, guided by the precept that when members fulll their responsibility to the public, clients' and employers' interests are best served. .03 Those who rely on certied public accountants expect them to discharge their responsibilities with integrity, objectivity, due professional care, and a genuine interest in serving the public.They are expected to provide quality services, enter into fee arrangements, and offer a range of servicesall in a manner that demonstrates a level of professionalism consistent with these Principles of the Code of Professional Conduct. .04 All who accept membership in the American Institute of Certied Public Accountants commit themselves to honor the public trust. In return for the faith that the public reposes in them, members should seek continually to demonstrate their dedication to professional excellence. ET Section 54 Article IIIIntegrity To maintain and broaden public condence, members should perform all professional responsibilities with the highest sense of integrity. .01 Integrity is an element of character fundamental to professional recognition. It is the quality from which the public trust derives and the benchmark against which a member must ultimately test all decisions. .02 Integrity requires a member to be, among other things, honest and candid within the constraints of client condentiality. Service and the public trust should not be subordinated to personal gain and advantage. Integrity can accommodate the inadvertent error and the honest difference of opinion; it cannot accommodate deceit or subordination of principle. .03 Integrity is measured in terms of what is right and just. In the absence of specic rules, standards, or guidance, or in the face of conicting opinions, a member should test decisions and deeds by asking: "Am I doing what a person of integrity would do? Have I retained my integrity?" Integrity requires a member to observe both the form and the spirit of technical and ethical standards; circumvention of those standards constitutes subordination of judgment. .04 Integrity also requires a member to observe the principles of objectivity and independence and of due care. ET Section 55 Article IVObjectivity and Independence A member should maintain objectivity and be free of conicts of interest in discharging professional responsibilities. A member in public practice should be independent in fact and appearance when providing auditing and other attestation services. .01 Objectivity is a state of mind, a quality that lends value to a member's services. It is a distinguishing feature of the profession. The principle of objectivity imposes the obligation to be impartial, intellectually honest, and free of conicts of interest. Independence precludes relationships that may appear to impair a member's objectivity in rendering attestation services. .02 Members often serve multiple interests in many different capacities and must demonstrate their objectivity in varying circumstances. Members in public practice render attest, tax, and management advisory services. Other members prepare nancial statements in the employment of others, perform internal auditing services, and serve in nancial and management capacities in industry, education, and government. They also educate and train those who aspire to admission into the profession. Regardless of service or capacity, members should protect the integrity of their work, maintain objectivity, and avoid any subordination of their judgment. .03 For a member in public practice, the maintenance of objectivity and independence requires a continuing assessment of client relationships and public responsibility. Such a member who provides auditing and other attestation services should be independent in fact and appearance. In providing all other services, a member should maintain objectivity and avoid conicts of interest. .04 Although members not in public practice cannot maintain the appearance of independence, they nevertheless have the responsibility to maintain objectivity in rendering professional services. Members employed by others to prepare nancial statements or to perform auditing, tax, or consulting services are charged with the same responsibility for objectivity as members in public practice and must be scrupulous in their application of generally accepted accounting principles and candid in all their dealings with members in public practice. ET Section 56 Article VDue Care A member should observe the profession's technical and ethical standards, strive continually to improve competence and the quality of services, and discharge professional responsibility to the best of the member's ability. .01 The quest for excellence is the essence of due care. Due care requires a member to discharge professional responsibilities with competence and diligence. It imposes the obligation to perform professional services to the best of a member's ability with concern for the best interest of those for whom the services are performed and consistent with the profession's responsibility to the public. .02 Competence is derived from a synthesis of education and experience. It begins with a mastery of the common body of knowledge required for designation as a certied public accountant. The maintenance of competence requires a commitment to learning and professional improvement that must continue throughout a member's professional life. It is a member's individual responsibility. In all engagements and in all responsibilities, each member should undertake to achieve a level of competence that will assure that the quality of the member's services meets the high level of professional is required by these Principles. .03 Competence represents the attainment and maintenance of a level of understanding and knowledge that enables a member to render services with facility and acumen. It also establishes the limitations of a member's capabilities by dictating that consultation or referral may be required when a professional engagement exceeds the personal competence of a member or a member's rm. Each member is responsible for assessing his or her own competenceof evaluating whether education, experience, and judgment are adequate for the responsibility to be assumed. .04 Members should be diligent in discharging responsibilities to clients, employers, and the public. Diligence imposes the responsibility to render services promptly and carefully, to be thorough, and to observe applicable technical and ethical standards. .05 Due care requires a member to plan and supervise adequately any professional activity for which he or she is responsible ET Section 57 Article VIScope and Nature of Services A member in public practice should observe the Principles of the Code of Professional Conduct in determining the scope and nature of services to be provided. .01 The public interest aspect of certied public accountants' services requires that such services be consistent with acceptable professional behavior for certied public accountants. Integrity requires that service and the public trust not be subordinated to personal gain and advantage. Objectivity and independence require that members be free from conicts of interest in discharging professional responsibilities. Due care requires that services be provided with competence and diligence. .02 Each of these Principles should be considered by members in determining whether or not to provide specic services in individual circumstances. In some instances, they may represent an overall constraint on the nonaudit services that might be offered to a specic client. No hard-and-fast rules can be developed to help members reach these judgments, but they must be satised that they are meeting the spirit of the Principles in this regard. .03 In order to accomplish this, members should Practice in rms that have in place internal quality-control procedures to ensure that services are competently delivered and adequately supervised. Determine, in their individual judgments, whether the scope and nature of other services provided to an audit client would create a conict of interest in the performance of the audit function for that client. Assess, in their individual judgments, whether an activity is consistent with their role as professionals.

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