I have always met individuals who were either in tax, audit, or general
accounting. I attended an accounting conference about 15 years ago
and sat in a presentation about forensic accounting. I was so intrigued
with the profession. However, I felt that since I have been in general
accounting for a while that it would have been hard to transition into
forensic accounting.
b b The concept that I enjoyed the most was conducting a fraud
investigation. It gave an overview of the engagement as well as the
different phases. It moves on to discuss the reasonableness of fraud.
The concept that will be most useful in my personal life is the chapter
on professional responsibilities. This topic is relevant for all careers
and areas of life. As an accountant there are code of conducts that we
must follow in our career. I prepare tax returns as well. I must have
professional competence and due professional care and keep up with
the tax laws so that I am providing my clients with the best service
possible. I also must have confidently with clients’ information. b I have
access to individual’s social security number as well as their
dependents and spouses. b In addition, I do not provide return
information to client’s families including their spouses if they are filing
separately. I leave that up to the client’s to share their own information
if they choose.
There were many concepts and skills Found truly interesting was
Cressey’s Fraud theory. b The theory being that a “violation of trust (fraud)
occurs when the position of trust (opportunity) is viewed by the trusted
person as a rational means (solution) to solve a non-shareable problem
(pressure)” (Rufus, 2015, pg. 149). Being able to understand the different
sides of the triangle such as pressure, opportunity, and rationalization is
something I will quite literally need to take with me going into my field.
Recently, we have seen a surge of financial statements that seem
dubious and could warrant the need to implement the fraud theory to
understand who, why and how they committed the fraud. The way that
the economy is heading, auditors will be needed more than ever to
ensure that companies and institutions are in compliance with GAAP
standards.
References
• Rufus, R. J., Miller, L. S., & Hahn, W. (2015). Forensic
accounting. Pearson.
