Commitment to ethics is crucial for a CPA's success. A periodic review of ethical reasoning and ethical theory can help keep key concepts and duties front of mind for the professional who is navigating the ethical challenges that inevitably arise from time to time in personal and professional situations.

Accountants can get the really difficult questions and challenging requests. Fiddle with the numbers. Look the other way. Rubber stamp a transaction.

More often, though, the challenges come in areas that are not black and white. The accounting profession is challenging and complex. In some situations, the expedient choice is not necessarily the ethical one.

The goal of this Board-approved course is to help you approach the gray zones, as well as to be familiar with bright-line rules of the AIPCA and the Florida Board of Accountancy.

The materials in the course are designed to help you keep in mind some frameworks, techniques, and concepts that can help you think through your actions as you strive to make decisions that align with your ethical principles. As a CPA, you are entrusted with the significant responsibility of maintaining the public trust and confidence in the accounting profession.

These materials emphasize the core values of the accounting profession-including integrity, objectivity, and independence.

These central tenets of the AICPA's Code of Professional Conduct align (and are sometimes incorporated into) many states' accountancy codes of professional conduct. By reviewing ethical foundations and tying them to the values and rules of the accounting profession, you will be able to navigate ethical challenges with confidence and uphold the public trust in the profession.

This course will take you through all of these topics, tying them all together and giving you the periodic review that will help you maintain your ethical standards and consistent application of ethics rules.

After successfully completing this course, you will be able to:

• recall the definitions of and key concepts related to ethical reasoning and ways they relate to a CPA's work
• recognize the principles of ethical theories, including utilitarian ethics, deontological ethics, stakeholder ethics, and virtue ethics and identify how such theories can be applied in practical situations in life and in business
• recognize certain preeminent core values of accountancy, including integrity, objectivity, and independence
• identify additional core values that you must apply in your professional life
• recall important rules and guidelines in the Rules of the Florida Board of Accountancy (61H1) and Florida Statutes (Chapters 455 and 473)
• remember the AICPA's principles, general standards, core values, and conceptual framework as you make decisions when encountering ethical challenges

Florida CPAs