How To Take Ethics CPE Courses Online
Because of all the on-going accounting scandals, which appear to have elevated in scope and effect, threatening to tear down entire economies, ethics continuing education courses are more important than ever before. The crimes involve complicated methods of misusing or misdirecting funds, or overstating revenues or understating expenses. Other common misdeeds include overstating the value of assets and underreporting the presence of liabilities. The common denominator behind them all is to develop a false impression of corporate finances as they happen to be, thus defrauding investors, the government, and others.
Behind it all, too, have been the accountants who have, either intentionally or unwittingly, permitted such misconduct – and hence the pressing need for ethics CPE courses to maintain the profession continuously aware of such matters, especially since oftentimes abuse may be completely legal.
Yes, legal – though unethical.
For instance, an executive can powerfully effect the stock price by using his information asymmetry not in the form of insider trading but through delaying the making of accounting information to be able to make the company’s earnings seem poorer. But why would an executive want to do this, in essence making his or her stewardship look bad? Because such businesses are then easy takeover targets – with the takeover artist then rewarding the executive with a so-called golden handshake worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Notice that it was the accounting department which helped enable the scheme in the first place.
And such a practice just isn’t limited to the private sector, but often occurs in the privitization of non-profit companies or of public assets. The top executives in charge also scheme with takeover artists in order to make matters appear dire – with private interests stepping in as white knights to the rescue. What uninformed outsiders see after the dust settles is that a previously “distressed” public enterprise is now financially healthy under private ownership, bringing about the perception that the private sector knows best.
While ethics CPE courses may not do much in stemming such chicanery, they do at least represent the ideals of the profession and are nevertheless important in increasing awareness of these kinds of misdeeds.